I offer solidarity with the two gardaí who were badly injured in a vicious attack in Dublin last night. All Deputies will want to share their thoughts and sympathies with them and their families.

Each week brings more news of the Government’s failure on housing policy. Today in particular we see news about failed policy in regard to renters, with a report from Daft.ie showing that rents rose by 14% year on year and a record 4.3% increase between June and September this year. Rents in Dublin, including my own constituency, are now more than €2,200 per month on average. In Longford, Leitrim and Cavan rents rose by a staggering 20%. We are seeing that this is a widespread phenomenon.

We see rising rents and unaffordable homes for people. Increasingly, I know all of us are hearing, as I am, stories from those seeking to rent who are simply unable to secure affordable accommodation. One student told me at the weekend of spending five months looking in Dublin for somewhere suitable to rent and is now paying €1,200 per month for one room in a shared house with a shared, communal bathroom facility. Another constituent told me that upon contacting her landlord to request necessary plumbing and heating repairs, she was then issued with a notice to quit because her landlord was selling her home. The Government’s very welcome U-turn on a temporary eviction ban means she will not be without a home this Christmas, but the notion that a landlord could even threaten someone with eviction merely for requesting necessary repairs to their home is an indictment of our housing system. Some of the stories I hear all of the time from constituents about their difficulties with securing housing are stories we might expect from a Seán O’Casey play, not from a wealthy, prosperous European capital city in the 21st century.

It is again an indictment of Government failings. I urge everyone to come out this Saturday, 26 November, for the Raise the Roof rally in Parnell Square, which we in the Labour Party and those across the Opposition are supporting. We know that policies are failing, that people are left without homes and that 11,000 people registered homeless last month. We see trade unions representing those in the education system saying the housing crisis is jeopardising education because teachers cannot afford homes and students at third level cannot afford to rent close to where they are going to college.

I ask the Taoiseach to commit to spending the time that has been bought through the winter eviction ban to ensure the reduction of red tape to facilitate the purchase of properties by local authorities, so at least we will see the tenant in situ scheme ramped up and strengthened to ensure some protections are afforded to families beyond this winter, where otherwise they might be facing eviction. Will the Taoiseach heed our calls and adopt a policy of strengthening the tenant in situ scheme to ensure we will not see a deluge of further evictions in the spring?

I have repeatedly made it clear in this House that housing is the single most urgent and important social issue facing our country. The Government has brought in a range of actions in terms of increasing housing supply, and it is about housing supply. The targets this year will be exceeded but we need to do far more. The Deputy used the phrase, and I will take her up on it because I have heard precious little on solutions from anyone in the House. I have had no comprehensive response to Housing for All from any party in this House. There is no alternative comprehensive policy position presented by any party in this House against Housing for All.

The strength of Housing for All is the diverse range of options, from cost rental to affordable and local authority affordable to the Land Development Agency, which is now looking, through Project Tosaigh, at about 5,000 new homes, and then right across the board to the local authorities themselves and the approved housing bodies. We will have a very high number of social housing units this year through building, acquisition and some leases, probably the highest in many a year, but we need solutions. When we come forward in the next couple of weeks, first, with an amendment of the An Bord Pleanála Bill, it will give us stronger powers, not just to cut red tape but to move much faster in the planning process for social and affordable houses.

I look forward to Deputy Bacik’s support when that is presented before the House. I look forward to the Sinn Fein Party’s support. The time for playing with words is over on the Opposition side. It is fine that people can raise issues and that is legitimate, of course, because this is a big issue, but I heard people this morning on radio and television but not one proposal, not one option to do anything other than to criticise an existing range of policies. Supply is the issue. Delivery is the issue.

Planning is also an issue. It will be a short measure that the Minister is bringing forward but there will be a far more comprehensive measure in terms of a new planning Act which consolidates and codifies the planning laws to streamline the planning process, so we can get housing proposals through faster, to be frank, and so we can build houses more rapidly than we currently are, using the best advanced manufacturing technology in their construction. This will be coming before the House in the next number of weeks.

I do not expect the entire planning Act to be done before Christmas. That will not happen. I accept there will have to be a full discussion but some of the earlier initiatives will be coming before the House and we will want the support of the Deputy's party in that respect so that we can get social housing built faster on publicly owned land, with some affordable as well. The Minister will be using powers to do that. I invite the Deputy to express and articulate her support for measures of that kind.

The Taoiseach is absolutely right - the time to play with words is over and the time is now to build more houses. He is also right about supply being the issue. However, he is wrong to say the Opposition does not come up with constructive ideas and solutions. We in the Labour Party put forward a clear proposal in our alternative budget this year for an additional spend of €1.5 billion precisely to deal with that issue of supply and to build homes on public land.

Here are two other constructive solutions. First, let us see the scaling up of the tenant in situ scheme about which we have spoken and which I have raised before in the House to ensure that local authorities are given consistent rules to apply to prevent homelessness after the winter eviction ban has ceased. Second, let us see the Government spending the money allocated in the housing budget. Members have seen it reported in the Sunday Independent that €476 million of the Government's housing budget for the first nine months of this year went unspent, including a €228 million underspend on council housing. That is not the level of expenditure one would expect or should see during what President Higgins has rightly described as a housing disaster. We will be constructive, we have welcomed the winter eviction ban and we will welcome constructive reforms to the planning legislation, but we also want to see urgent action from the Government in delivering the supply of new housing.

The Deputy knows well that, every year, every Department carries over 10% of its budget because schemes are not completed before the end of the December deadline. In addition, there will obviously be money allocated towards the end of the year again in terms of housing initiatives. The housing in situ scheme is one the Minister himself initiated. It is up to 600 houses now that have been or are in the process of being purchased by local authorities, with tenants in situ. That scheme is happening as we speak. As I stated in the context of the social housing target, in terms of builds, acquisition and leasing we will be well above previous years in terms of social housing output. It is not an issue of funding; it is actually an issue of delivery through the various planning processes and so on and getting projects delivered in a much faster way, which will mean, in some respects, particularly on public land, rapidly accelerating housing, especially social housing, in terms of the planning process.