The key message for today is we need a winter eviction ban. We have seen it in the report from Threshold launched today, which was unequivocal. It outlined that the most pressing issue facing those renting in the private sector in Ireland is the termination of their tenancy. The fear of termination of tenancy, of eviction, is the biggest fear confronting renters. With over 10,000 people on the homeless list we know just how serious that fear is. Of course, the second fear of renters is of rent increases. Rents have increased by almost 80% in the past decade and risen by 90% in Dublin. Renters are worried they will lose their home through eviction. We need to see urgent action from the Government on this.

Threshold has recommended the removal of no-fault eviction from the Residential Tenancies Acts. Twelve months ago, the Labour Party put forward in this Chamber the Residential Tenancies (Tenants' Rights) Bill which would have created, among other things, far greater security of tenure for renters by restricting the situations in which a tenant can be evicted, along with providing for better quality-of-life measures for tenants. Had the Government taken on our Bill this time last year, families who rent would have been guaranteed a safe home this winter but so many renters now do not have that security. I am conscious that my constituency has more than double the national average of households in private rental accommodation. This is a very serious issue. President Michael D. Higgins was right to call the housing situation "a disaster".

No single section of society is insulated from this disaster. It spans age cohorts. In my constituency I have supported pensioners facing eviction due to unaffordable spiralling rents. Losing your home late in life is unquestionably appalling for somebody facing into older age. It is a social, economic and public health issue but it is a particularly terrible situation for daoine óga na hÉireann. Our youngest generation are facing a future where they have no certainty or security about where they are going to be able to live. My own office has taken to trawling daft.ie and private advertisements to assist students who are thinking of dropping out of third level education because they cannot find anywhere to live. It is devastating to have to tell students and their parents there is simply nowhere available. I commend the Union of Students in Ireland on co-ordinating a student walkout this morning at 11.11 a.m. One of its key points of protest is the abject lack of accommodation for those attending further or higher education. The Government must listen to these students. The market has failed to deliver on accommodation for those renting and seeking to rent to attend college.

Will the Government impose an immediate and temporary eviction ban for this winter? It can be done within the terms of our Constitution if it is carried out in a way that is proportionate. There are precedents for doing so. Will the Tánaiste concede this needs to be done now?

Unfortunately, we are seeing a rise in people who are homeless and need to access emergency accommodation. I am thankful that we are able to provide emergency accommodation for almost everyone who needs it. We do not see, or at least we very rarely see, families having to sleep on the streets or sleep in cars, as is often the case in other countries. Nobody wants us to end up in that situation. With a few exceptions, which are often very difficult and complex cases, we are able to provide emergency accommodation to everyone but that is not where we want to be. We do not want to be providing emergency accommodation for over 10,000 people, which is what we are doing now. The experts and people who work at the coalface tell me it is being driven by three things. One is indeed landlords giving people notices to terminate as they sell up and leave the market. There is a real difficulty securing housing assistance payment, HAP, tenancies and that is why we have increased the HAP limits quite considerably. There has been a significant increase in the last couple of months of families from overseas - non-Irish families - presenting for emergency accommodation. In general, they are not entitled to social housing in Ireland but we provide them with emergency accommodation on a humanitarian basis, as we should. Those are the three factors driving the increase in homelessness according to the experts and the people working at the coalface and in the field.

As for what we can do to help, the rent credit will help some people with their rents. It is €500 per person, so for a couple it is €1,000 and for three people renting it is €1,500. In many cases it will be the best part of a month's rent to help people with that. I advise people who face the possibility of losing their home to engage with the prevention services as soon as possible. That could be through the Government services or NGOs like Threshold and Focus Ireland because prevention works and we need to resource those areas a little better.

A no-fault eviction ban over the winter period is being weighed up by the Government. I certainly have no ideological objection to that. We introduced it when I was Taoiseach during the last Government, although that was during the Covid crisis when there were restrictions on movement and the circumstances were different. We have to weigh up the pros and cons. The obvious advantage is fewer people losing their homes over the winter period. The obvious disadvantage is when it ends, we may see a glut of homelessness occurring at that time which is harder to deal with. It may indeed accelerate the number of landlords leaving the sector and might result in a higher level of homelessness next year. Nobody wants to do anything that helps a problem get a bit better for a few months only to make it much worse in a year's time. We have to weigh it up. As the Taoiseach said, it cannot be the only response and must be part of a wider response.

We have certainly been pushing for a wider response. I ask that the Government take up the renters' rights Bill we put forward this time last year because it addresses broader issues around security of tenure and the quality of living conditions for renters. We were glad the Government did not oppose the Bill at that time but we would like to see further progress made on it.

It is useful and welcome to hear the Government is also considering the introduction of a winter eviction ban. It is an urgently needed measure. We see it done in other countries. The Tánaiste mentioned other countries but in France there is a winter truce that begins on 1 November and remains in place until 1 April. During that period landlords have no right to evict tenants, even with a court order, and gas and electricity supplies cannot be cut off. We can learn from other countries where we can see radical measures have been taken to give tenants security, especially through the tough winter months ahead. How bad do we need to see things getting before we see emergency measures adopted here? Again, I reference the proportionate response needed now with the housing emergency and indeed the housing disaster.

The Deputy is right to say we can learn from other countries but we should not be naive about what things look like in other countries either. Anyone who has walked the streets of Paris or Marseilles will see the kind of homelessness problem that exists there and how much worse it has got in the past ten or 20 years. I acknowledge the Deputy does not think there is any quick fix to these things and nor do I. A number of measures are required and there are many in place already. Let us not forget all new tenancies are now tenancies of unlimited duration and any tenant who is being served a notice to terminate has a period of up to six months, in some cases, to find a new place to live.

I acknowledge how difficult that can be in some cases.

I hear the same issues about students struggling to find accommodation in my constituency office. Deputy Bacik said she often checks daft.ie. It is a good website, though it is only one website. I checked digs.ie this morning. It has a large number of digs available, which is an option for some people. Student accommodation services in the universities have lists of rooms available, running to the hundreds in many cases.