The Tánaiste never fails to surprise me. The language he is coming out with today is that it is not as bad as it was 14 years ago. Does he know where ordinary people are at in his constituency and in Dublin Bay South? Does he know what people are being asked to pay to buy their own home? There is a serious problem and the problem is not, as he is suggesting, bigger mortgages. The problem relates to what the ESRI, the Central Bank, Sinn Féin and many others have been saying. The issue is not about stimulating more demand, which will push up house prices. The demand is there; listen to ordinary people. It is about dealing with the supply. The ESRI is saying we should double capital investment from where it is today. The Tánaiste should not skirt around the issue.

This is a man-made problem. Indeed, the Tánaiste's Government has created it. Because it decided not to build houses over the past decade in the volume that was required, we have a situation, as the Central Bank points out, where the imbalance between supply and demand is pushing up house prices and the Central Bank is telling homeowners that this is going to continue.

I again ask the Tánaiste whether he will commit to doubling capital investment in this year's budget and giving that relief to renters by freezing rents for the next three years.

I think the Deputy is trying to misrepresent what I said, and that is exactly what he did the last time we discussed the issue of housing in the Chamber. Unfortunately, he was partially successful in that regard. That is a poor reflection on him but also on others who accept his spin too often when it comes to the issue of housing.

To answer the Deputy's question, the Government has dramatically increased investment in social housing. We will do so more, and he will see the details of that in Housing for All when it is published. Social housing benefits everyone. It gets people off the housing list and into social housing, frees up more properties for other people to rent, thus bringing down rents, and means there is less competition for first-time buyers and people who are upgrading. Social housing is a good investment and it benefits everyone in society, not just those who receive social housing.

What the majority of people in Ireland want, however, is to own their own homes, and we have to look at that end of things as well because it is not just one simple solution that solves all these problems. This is a complex area and it requires many different policy interventions. More social housing is absolutely needed and I ask Sinn Féin councillors to please vote for it on local authorities. We do but they do not. The solution involves cost rental and affordable housing schemes but it also involves the building of more private homes that people can buy because that is what the vast majority of people want.