I wish to express my renewed sympathies to the families of Aidan Moffitt and Michael Snee as the killer of their loved ones was sentenced last night. Our thoughts are also with Anthony Burke who so bravely spoke out about the attack on him too.

We are all watching the appalling situation and rising death toll in Gaza with increasing distress and horror but today I do want to raise a different issue with the Taoiseach, which is the issue of housing. It is not just in healthcare that we find gaping holes in the Taoiseach's Government's budget. There are missing billions in housing too. On budget day in a surprise announcement the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, told us that he would seek Cabinet approval for an additional €6 billion for the Land Development Agency. This was a welcome announcement but a peculiar one because neither the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, nor the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, had mentioned it in their budget day speeches. We are now two weeks on and it is not clear where that mystery €6 billion will come from. Is the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, perhaps hoping to find it down the back of a couch? Whatever is going on I hope it will materialise soon because he is fast becoming known as the Minister for initiatives and not for delivery. In a rare twist, I agree with him and I hope that he soon finds that €6 billion and that he and his Department get their act together soon. The housing crisis is the civil rights issue for this generation. It is not going to fix itself. Those who are renting, who are stuck with unaffordable rents, and who remain in permanent fear of eviction are at the sharp end of this housing crisis. It is now seven months on from the lifting of the temporary no-fault eviction ban. It is seven months since the announcement of the first refusal scheme that was a half-hearted half measure for contingencies for renters. It is seven months on and we are finally seeing the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, bringing legislation to the Cabinet just today. It is incredible that this measure is taking so long to implement. What kind of message does that send to renters who are at the sharp end of the housing crisis and who are still in fear of eviction?

The Taoiseach's Government has failed renters and has failed to fix the housing crisis. The Government has even failed to secure and ensure additional adequate and robust legislative powers for the Land Development Agency, LDA. This is the very body that was supposed to be the vehicle to deliver the necessary increased housing supply in this chronic housing shortage.

The Taoiseach may be aware that a change in terminology by the Central Statistics Office has meant some provisions in the Act that create compulsory purchase powers for the Land Development Agency, LDA, have now been rendered ineffective. The irony is that the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage was on the working group that decided to make this change in terminology, a change that we in the Labour Party pointed out will result in the need for amending legislation to restore adequate, robust powers to the Land Development Agency.

In the absence of those powers, we might call the LDA the Lame Duck Agency. Where is the additional €6 billion for the Land Development Agency? Can the Taoiseach ensure that the agency will have the robust powers it needs to deliver on housing? What can the Government offer renters who remain in fear of eviction, given the first refusal scheme is still not in place and there is no prospect, it seems, of reintroducing a temporary ban on no-fault evictions this winter?

At the outset, I join the Deputy in expressing my condolences to the family of Aidan Moffitt, a man I would have met on occasion through his involvement in Fine Gael, and the family of Michael Snee. I particularly thank the Garda for the work it has done in bringing this prosecution successfully through the courts. I also note the bravery of the man who was injured in stepping forward, testifying and giving his witness testimony to the Garda. I extend my admiration to him and my thanks to the Garda in particular.

The housing budget for next year is the biggest housing budget ever. That was confirmed on budget day. That €5.1 billion will allow us to break all records in terms of public housing next year, including social housing, cost-rental and publicly funded affordable housing. That is much needed. We also extended the help-to-buy scheme to the end of 2025. That helps so many people to get their deposit to be able to be in the market to buy a home. They would not otherwise be able to buy a home and in many cases would spend many more years trying to raise a deposit were it not for that measure. We extended the tax credit for renters to €750 for an individual and €1,500 for a couple renting, which is roughly a month's rent on average in the State. There is funding as well for the tenant in situ scheme. This is really important for renters. We have about 3,000 properties now in the process. These are properties where the landlord is selling up and the tenant is a social housing tenant, probably on HAP or possibly getting the rent supplement, and they are now becoming regular social housing tenants. About 3,000 of those properties are now in process. The right-to-buy legislation was approved by Cabinet today. I hope to get that through the House as soon as possible. There is also a tax incentive for small landlords to encourage them to stay in the market and reduce the flow of small landlords in particular who are leaving the market.

Regarding the LDA, it is a new Government agency, essentially. It is a public developer and a public builder. It got off to a slow start but now it is producing results, building homes, selling homes and renting homes around the country, including cost rental, affordable and social. We are glad to see that is now finally happening. Announcements on capitalisation do not have to happen in the budget. We are working on that at the moment. What I can guarantee to the Deputy is that the LDA will be adequately capitalised to carry out its work and to build as many new homes as it possibly can, both on public land and on private land.

On the issue of CPOs, I will have to come back to the Deputy or confer with the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, because I am not fully across the detail of it.

It is just not good enough to give a litany or list of measures seeking to explain the housing crisis away. It is not good enough when we see nearly 13,000 people in emergency accommodation, almost 4,000 of whom are children, and when we see more than two thirds of people aged between 25 and 29 still living in their childhood bedrooms at home with their parents, tens of thousands who are whittling away their savings on rent when they want to be able to afford and buy a home of their own. Those are the figures that matter.

I did not hear any reassurance from the Taoiseach that the LDA would be adequately capitalised. Indeed, he admitted that it got off to a slow start. There is no doubt about that. When it was first mooted, the Land Development Agency was expected to deliver 150,000 homes in 20 years. That was the announcement. Now that forecast has been reduced to just 10,000 homes in five years. That is the problem with this Government on housing. It keeps moving the goalposts and it refuses, or neglects, to resource adequately the very vehicles that are required to deliver the housing necessary to fix and address this chronic housing shortage. Who is going to take responsibility for capitalising the Land Development Agency? How much money will be given to it? When will we see the focus shift from glossy announcements of new initiatives to actual delivery of real homes for people who so badly need them?

The LDA is delivering real homes. I have been on site. I have been in the completed buildings. I have met the people who were moving into those homes. At long last, we are seeing that on the ground with the LDA, our public builder and developer, producing those homes.

We will make sure the LDA is adequately capitalised to continue that programme and to make sure we can develop places like, for example, the old Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, where we can build the best part of a thousand new homes for people in this city. There are projects in Cork as well and all over the country. This is very much happening on the ground. We will make sure the LDA is adequately capitalised. It is an off-balance sheet transaction that does not need to be done as part of budget day announcements.

While I do not want to get into statistical arguments with the Deputy as I do not think there is much point in either of us doing that, the figure she used of two thirds of people of a certain age group living at home has been discounted. That was a Eurostat figure that was not correct. The CSO figures have come out since then and the figure is closer to a third than two thirds.