You are very welcome. People woke up this morning to the latest Daft.ie rental report. It confirms what everyone knows. The report shows the biggest hike in new rents since records began - a staggering surge of 14% in one year. It is a new, grim record achieved on the watch of the Taoiseach's Government. What does this mean for hard-pressed renters? Across the State it means an average monthly rent of over €1,600. In the Taoiseach's neck of the woods, renters in Cork city will fork out over €1,700 a month. Get this - in this city, Dublin, it means paying an average monthly rent of €2,258, or a staggering €28,000 a year. Has the Taoiseach read this report? It is just off the wall. Who can afford to pay these insane amounts of money? The answer is very few. Very soon, only the very well-off will be able to live in our cities.

The teaching unions today issued a statement. They say our education system is at risk because schools are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit teachers because of this housing crisis. Working people cannot afford to rent. Working people cannot afford to buy. Social housing delivery is nowhere near what is needed. While this situation worsens, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, who is completely out of his depth, says we do not have a housing emergency and the Tánaiste wrongly tells young people that the grass is not greener and they will not find lower rents abroad. In fact, they will. The Taoiseach comes in here every week and tells us the Government's housing policy is working.

Well, it is not. The housing policy of this Government should be about delivery, but instead we get denial, delusion and desperation. The record rent hike was entirely foreseeable. The writing was on the wall. We told the Government the credit for renters included in its budget was not enough. We told the Government that to really protect renters it also needed to ban rent increases. Each time the Government's answer was "No".

We also repeatedly warned the Taoiseach that the Government's targets for the delivery of cost-rental homes are too low, and it is not even meeting those low targets. Now, we hear that commencement rates for housing construction have dropped significantly, putting housing targets for next year in real jeopardy. If this was not bad enough, a Government memo has confirmed a housing underspend of almost half a billion euro in the middle of Ireland's worst ever housing crisis. It is scandalous.

Faoin Rialtas seo, tá an t-ardú cíosa is mó riamh againn ach fós deireann an tAire, an Teachta Darragh O’Brien, nach bhfuil éigeandáil tithíochta againn. Tá sé in am i gcomhair gnímh. Caithfidh an Rialtas cosc a chur ar arduithe cíosa ar feadh trí bliana.

The Taoiseach says housing is the number one priority for this Government, but the crisis in people's lives puts that claim to shame. The Government acts as if rip-off rents are a figment of people’s imagination. Now the chickens of its inaction have come home to roost and it is renters who pay a heavy price. What is the Taoiseach's answer to renters across Ireland who are fleeced by these outrageous rent hikes? Does this record rent increase now convince him that we do, in fact, have a housing emergency? Will he finally do what is necessary and ban rent increases for three years?

I do not want to engage in semantics with the Deputy but she has seized on the word "emergency" in the past two weeks as if it is some sort of magic word that will transform our housing output. She is not the first to come up with the term "emergency". At the launch of Housing for All in September 2021, I made it clear that when I talked about and referenced a whole-of-government approach that, "[T]he fact is that the social emergency that is our housing crisis cannot and will not be solved by any one department on its own". The point is that we have treated this issue as an emergency from day one, in terms of the legislation we have passed and the initiatives that have been outlined. A lot of what we are doing is already bearing fruit.

While many people urgently need housing, many others have got housing. I refer to Laura, a new tenant in Stepaside, who was struggling to find accommodation and said that she had to get her dad to help her because it was so expensive. With the cost-rental scheme things are now a lot more affordable and it has been a great opportunity for her to move into an apartment she can finally afford. Bernardo said that his family had been looking for housing since last November and it had not being going well. They wanted a two-bedroom apartment. He went on to say that he did not quite believe the price could be true because he knows the rent in Dublin for a two-bedroom apartment is about €2,000 per month and they were ready to go for a one-bedroom apartment that would cost at least €1,500 per month. The family is moving into a brand new apartment with two bedrooms for €1,264 per month and, unlike other rental properties, they can stay for the long term and it is their home for as long as they want which makes them really happy and secure. Courtney, who is moving to a cost-rental home in Kilcarbery Grange, said it gives her security and has a beautiful home. Bernard was one of the first-home scheme applicants. He said the first-home process was easy, fast and has helped him, and that the first-home scheme experience is definitely one of the best services he has received. What is significant about the first-home and cost-rental schemes?

Yesterday, I was at a Land Development Agency, LDA, development at Shanganagh where the sod was dug for 600 houses. Some 50% of the units will be a cost rental. Actions speak louder than words. Who opposed the LDA? Sinn Féin opposed it and voted against it in this House and the prospect of 600 homes. All councillors in the area, irrespective of party, yesterday celebrated the launch of the development and their role in making sure the site was available. Who opposed the first-home scheme? The Sinn Féin Party opposed the first-home scheme.

Time and again the Sinn Féin Party has voted against and opposed significant housing developments throughout Dublin and the country, from Oscar Traynor Road to Ballymastone in Donabate.

Deputy McDonald herself has opposed more than 1,600 homes on Clonliffe Road, about 177 apartments in Cabra and about 79 apartments on Moore Street as part of the broader Moore Street development. I am finding it increasingly difficult to understand how Sinn Féin reconciles its track record in this House and elsewhere in opposing such good initiatives that are now leading to cost-rental and affordable homes and social homes. Sinn Féin opposed all of those. Yet, in opposing all of those it still declared the housing issue to be an emergency. The two positions do not reconcile.

As the Taoiseach announced the latest Housing for All, there was an emergency and there is still an emergency - in fact, a more profound emergency. As we speak today, house prices and rents are up and, very sadly, we will hear again that the rates of homelessness are up. The way in which the Taoiseach tries to dodge and evade answering questions by pointing to others, as though he was not the Taoiseach - and I know he has limited time left but he is still the Head of Government - as though he was not the Government and did not carry the responsibility to tackle this emergency, is quite astounding. There will be fewer than 500 cost rental homes this year. That is all. It is good news for those who have those tenancies - let me state that plainly - but it is not enough. That is fact. The report published this morning says it all. The average cost of renting in this city this year is €28,000.

Thank you, Deputy. The time is up.

I asked the Taoiseach whether he will ban rent increases-----

Time is up, Deputy.

-----for the next three years and he did not answer that question. I would appreciate it if he would answer that question.

We have limited rent increases to 2% in every rent pressure zone. We brought in a rent credit this year. Will the Deputy put down her documents and stop trying to create propaganda?

It is Daft.ie. I hardly think that is propagandist, in fairness.

An award-winning journalist, Sam McBride, wrote a very good article recently on Sinn Féin's housing performance in the North. It is entitled "Housing Crisis will not be solved by Sinn Féin's cynical populism". In the last paragraph, he writes that Sinn Féin's Stormont record suggests that party populism is more fervently held than its grasp of the detail of what would actually improve the housing situation and it is prepared to be deeply cynical in this area.

Is Daft.ie cynical too?

The difference between the Sinn Féin Party which simply wants to exploit the issue and the Government side is that we have taken a range of initiatives and actions. The help to buy scheme, for example, has helped 35,000 people to own their own home.

Time is up. Thank you, Taoiseach.

Sinn Féin would have abolished that scheme. I referenced-----

Time is up now, please.

-----how a person felt the first-home scheme was the best service they had ever got. Sinn Féin opposed that scheme and proposed its abolition.

Thank you, Taoiseach. Time is up.

Sinn Féin also opposed the grants for restoring housing in rural areas. I do not understand why as between 700 and 800 people have availed or are availing of that scheme.

I thank the Taoiseach.

You have no answer, Micheál. That is okay; I understand.

All of those people would lose out if Sinn Féin had its way.

We must move on.