With every week that passes, the housing crisis continues to spiral out of control. We see rents and house prices rising, social housing need continuing to grow and the number of children and adults in emergency accommodation at record levels. By every meaningful measure, the Government's housing plan is failing, yet every time a Deputy raises the issue of the housing crisis, the Tánaiste, the Taoiseach or the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government comes in here and spouts the line that the Government's housing plan is working. However, I have news for the Tánaiste: it is not. It is failing spectacularly.

On Monday the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, responding to the latest daft.ie report, had the cheek to go on RTÉ Radio and say rents are rising at "a slow rate". I am not sure on which planet exactly the Minister is living but I assure the Tánaiste of one thing: with an attitude like that, it is not in the real world. The average rent across the State is now €1,300. In Dublin, the figure is over €2,000, which is scandalous. When presented with alternatives, however, the Government simply shrugs its shoulders and carries on as normal. Ordinary people are facing a cost-of-living crisis. Whether it be rental costs, rip-off insurance costs, childcare costs or utility costs, they are being screwed over and over again and their concerns are cast aside. "The market will deliver" is Fine Gael's mantra, but the market has not delivered, is not delivering and will not deliver because the housing market is broken, and when something is broken the Government needs to go in and fix it.

A new survey by Uplift shows that 84% of renters feel insecure about their housing situation. This is little wonder when we look at the issue of rent inflation. In every county bar Dublin we have seen inflation of at least double the rent pressure zone caps that the Minister and his Government are so keen to laud. Rents in Dublin rose by 7% last year and it is absolutely bonkers at this time for the Government to be talking about mealy-mouthed measures. That time is over.

I ask the Tánaiste and his Government to cop on finally and accept that the Government's housing plan is utterly failing those most in need. Given the Government's fondness for making announcements on the eve of an election, will it now do the right thing and introduce measures that make a real difference to people's lives? The Government can start with three measures: a tax relief equal to one month's rent for every renter not already supported by the State; the introduction of a three-year rent freeze to give relief to those who are under pressure at this time; and, as we have continually placed on the Dáil's agenda, the introduction of legislation to ensure that landlords will not evict their tenants into homelessness. Will the Government legislate to this effect? These are the kinds of real measures we need to deal with the real pressures many families are facing.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue of housing because it gives me an opportunity to share with the House factual data. I refer to the figures published this morning by the CSO showing how housing policy on increasing supply, which is at the core of this problem, is working. The number of new homes becoming available for use in the 12 months to the end of March 2019 was 22,242. This is a 19% increase on the figure for the 12 months ending March 2018. Of these new homes available for use, the number of brand new dwelling completions added to the housing stock in the year to the end of March was 18,828, up 25% on the year ending March 2018. Looking at other trends and indicators, planning permissions, for example, show an increase of 41% on the full year 2017, while commencement notices increased by 32% and registrations by 19% in the same period. Regardless of Sinn Féin's assessment, the CSO figures do not lie. We are accelerating the delivery of housing supply across the country, in particular in the areas where it is needed. The figures are not yet where they need to be. I know that, as does everyone in this House. It is true that we need to be building probably 35,000 housing units a year to meet increasing demand and an increasing population.

Because of a lack of supply, which is a decade-long problem, there are pressures on the rental market which are not normal. This is why we have extended the use of rent pressure zones, RPZs, with the support of Sinn Féin, through recent amendments, and rightly so. We have changed the way in which we calculate the thresholds for qualification as a rent pressure zone, again with the support of Sinn Féin, because that is the right thing to do. We have also increased the protections for tenants in respect of timelines, notice periods and so on. These are all market intervention measures that recognise that there is a problem in that elements of the market are broken and the State needs to intervene to protect tenants. Intervention is taking place, but the core of Rebuilding Ireland, which is a five-year housing strategy that is not even three years in yet, is to increase dramatically the supply of all kinds of housing, including social housing funded directly by the State and affordable housing schemes, supporting and reorientating a rental market in order that we do not have to make these kinds of fixes in the future and driving supply across all levels. We are now starting to see that the numbers are showing that this is working.

The Tánaiste has listed a number of measures, but even by the Government's own inadequate targets, it is already failing to meet those targets by 3,000 homes. This just shows how out of touch this Government is and how it fails to grasp the reality of the housing crisis unfolding and engulfing and weighing down so heavily on so many families right across the State. It is a Government that is out of touch. It is a case of decision makers who do not understand or respect the depth of the housing crisis. That is the crux of this problem. What we have are the posh boys and girls of Fine Gael-----

-----developing policies for people who are struggling.

Juvenile stuff.

The reality is that those on the Government benches will never have to struggle. I ask every one of those heckling me to put himself or herself in the shoes of the mother paying €1,500 in rent per month, paying some of the highest childcare costs in the European Union, being fleeced-----

Sinn Féin does not have a monopoly on compassion.

-----by her insurance company and trying to prepare for her daughter's First Holy Communion at the weekend.

I thank the Deputy. His time is up.

Would a three-year rent freeze and a rent relief of one month's rent each year for the next three years not be beneficial to her? Would it not be appropriate to give her that safety net and legislate to ensure she and her family, her children, will not be evicted into homelessness?

The Deputy's time is up.

This is the type of action we need, not heckling from the Government benches.

When the Deputy gets into the space of name-calling and trying to turn this into some kind of class war debate-----

It is.

It is a class war.

Please, Deputies.

-----it is proof that Sinn Féin is losing the argument. I assure the Deputy that the largest political party in the country speaks to all types of people in all types of circumstances, and we have them coming into our clinics just like Sinn Féin Deputies do.

Exactly.

We hear their stories and we respond to them through policy. Last year well over 25,000 housing solutions were put in place for people and we are spending billions of euro trying to ensure that what is a broken housing market is fixed as quickly as possible. However, we are not in the business of cheap headlines or short-term fixes that will cause increased problems in the medium term. That is the space Sinn Féin is in. It is looking for populist short-term fixes, as it sees them, but when we investigate, test and interrogate those solutions, it becomes very clear that they will make a bad situation even worse.

We were on about social housing ten years ago but Fine Gael did not want to know about it.

They will drive more landlords out of the market, which I think other parties in this House recognise. It is just as well we have other parties in the House that recognise the difficult decisions-----

The Tánaiste's time is up.

-----that are made and the fact-----

The situation is bad because a third of the members of Government are landlords.

-----that it takes time to fix something as fundamental as a broken housing market.

Fine Gael has been in government for some time now.

That is why we launched a five-year strategy to solve this problem. I think that strategy will be judged very positively at the end of those five years.