The saga that is RTÉ should not distract us from the ongoing housing crisis and housing disaster. Last Friday, homelessness figures set another new and shameful record for the Government. There are now 13,531 people homeless, including more than 4,000 children - a 17% increase in one year - which is truly shocking. This is a time when, as Lorcan Sirr writes, there are more than 18,000 empty homes available for short-term letting on Airbnb compared to only 2,000 that are available for longer term renting on daft.ie. Meanwhile, the European Commission sits on legislation that would finally bring in some proper regulation.

It has been more than five years since the Labour Party first proposed legislation to regulate short-term lets. I raised this question with the Tánaiste last week but got no satisfactory answer. There seems to be a view from the Government that we must just wait. Tell that to the thousands of people who are in homelessness or who are looking for a home. Other cities across Europe have already acted, so why can we not do so? What are young people going to think when they hear that average house prices have now exceeded the Celtic tiger high and that the average rent in Dublin is more than €2,000 per month? What are they to think when they hear that more than 19,000 eviction notices were issued last year, mostly because the landlord intended to sell? Our rental system is truly a wild west.

I raised this issue with the Tánaiste last week as well, but his response to me then amounted to a commentary on what is going on in the rental sector and not a statement of intent from the Government about what it is doing to address this. The only change the Tánaiste could point to was an extension of the notice periods landlords are obliged to give. In truth, it seems the Government has given up on trying to protect renters. It seems that unscrupulous landlords, like Marc Godart, can do what they like because the authorities will always be playing catch-up.

The Rental Tenancies Board, RTB, and indeed local authorities simply do not have the enforcement powers they need to hold people to account. Renters live in fear of eviction. Recently, in the Irish Examiner, Michael Byrne said that nobody renting privately in Ireland now has a secure home. That is the truth, because a notice of termination may come through the door on any day. We need to see stronger rights and protections for renters. In the Labour Party, we proposed this two years ago in a Bill on renters’ rights.

Is it the Government’s position that it has no further plans to improve the rights of tenants? Increasing supply is clearly at the core of the housing crisis. For months, I have been asking the Government when it is going to increase its housing targets. They are too low and Ireland needs to build more: at least 50,000 homes per year in order to meet the chronic situation of under supply and our growing population.

I will raise this issue with the Tánaiste every week between now and the local elections. What is he doing to tackle the housing crisis? When is he going to regulate short-term lets? What is he going to do now to improve the rights of renters and give people the security they need in their homes?

First, I take issue with some of what the Deputy said about my response from last week, because I did deal with the protection issue. The Government has brought in a raft of legislation and measures to protect tenants. There is also the rental tax credit, which was brought in in the budget before last and was increased in this budget.

More fundamentally, the issue is the supply of housing. More than 100,000 new homes have been delivered since 2020, and that figure takes into account the stoppages during the Covid period, when two lockdowns impacted it. That figure includes approximately 30,500 social homes that have been added to the social housing stock to Q3 of 2023. We reckon that a further 10,000 social homes in 2022 and 12,000 social homes were delivered in 2023. Approximately 23,000 social homes are either on site or at design or tender stage.

The importance of social housing is that it relates to homelessness and gives greater capacity to deal with the homelessness situation. We have developed strategies to exit people as quickly as possible from homelessness. The housing first initiative has been very effective in supporting a person who is experiencing homelessness into permanent housing as quickly as possible. The Deputy is familiar with that. Approximately 1,300 tenancies cover the period from 2022 to 2026. These have been provided for. They have been delivered in terms of the targets, etc. That is working with the various bodies that are involved in homelessness. We have exceeded the two-year target of 551 already in respect of that.

We exceeded targets last year on housing generally. This year, we can build close to 35,000 new homes, but we have to incrementally increase those. In respect of the short-term lets, as the Deputy has correctly pointed out, we have legislated and we have provided an initiative on that. Yet, as the Deputy knows, the commission will have to adjudicate on it. It has sought more time, much to our frustration. There is no point in going ahead and subsequently being judged to have infringed. Then, we would have a bigger mess. We are putting on the pressure and we are identifying to the commission the seriousness of this situation with the housing supply issue, as well as the need to get as much housing as possible available for the rental market.

We need more people to get into the rental market. We need more people to rent out homes, etc., as opposed to other options. That is always a balance on the regulatory side as well, because there is evidence that many people are leaving the market. They believe there is no certainty in the market for them either. That is something that we have to bear in mind.

The Tánaiste and I agree on one thing, which is the issue of supply. Yet, I am not hearing from him, or indeed from any Government spokesperson, any sense of urgency about tackling that chronic under-supply. Therefore, young people - such as the transition year students who are present in the Gallery, who are very welcome today and who are listening in - are getting no sense of hope that this Government will act to ensure there will be a sufficient supply of homes to meet their needs, as well as the needs of a growing population at a time when we are seeing such chronic under-supply.

The reality is that the Government's targets are just too low. I refer to its targets for house building, as well as its targets for the tenant in situ scheme. Last week, the Dublin Simon Community commented in response to that shameful figure on homelessness, stating that the targets for the tenant in situ scheme are also too low. The Government has to ensure that targets are raised to meet the real crisis level of need that it is out there, both through building new homes and through supplying greater security to renters through the tenant in situ scheme.

I thank the Deputy.

We are asking the Tánaiste again: what is his Government now doing to address the serious instability and insecurity that so many renters are now experiencing and to address those crisis figures of homelessness?

First, we need to be honest with people.

It is great in politics to say, "Oh, we have a target of 50,000." I think the Deputy said the Labour Party had a target of 1 million houses in ten years-----

That is the scale of ambition we need.

-----with no inkling of a plan to do it. We are the only party in the House - sorry, the Government and the three parties together----

You are in government.

It is a provisional Government.

Una voce.

Are you the only Government?

That is music to Paul Murphy's ears because he believes in the one-party state, as we know.

That is going back in time.

Briseann an dúchas.

This is important. We know what is in the pipeline for next year. The Deputy knows the urgency. This is the number one issue facing the country. The Government has acknowledged it is the number one issue.

It needs to raise the level of ambition.

We need to raise the level of building, not to be playing politics by saying "We have a bigger and better target than you", as happened at the last election.

Fianna Fáil used to be ambitious.

Someone was doing 50,000, someone else was doing 100,000, so it was "Oh, we are going to do 150,000." You have got to get them built and stop objecting all over the place to housing. If it is the priority that it is, people need to stop objecting to housing developments as they are going up on the basis of whether they are social, affordable or whatever. That has happened too and it has slowed down a lot of projects on councils. That said, do not be under any illusion but that there is total urgency in respect of housing. There is a whole raft of schemes, as the Deputy knows, such as the help to buy scheme and the first homes scheme. They have had a significant impact-----

In driving up prices.

-----in terms of the numbers of housing that have been completed.

We need delivery.

The number of young people who have been able to draw down mortgages in the last year or two is at a record level compared with the early 2000s. We are improving it but we have a lot more to do.

A lot more to do. Where did we hear that before?

It is a great slogan.

It was time for the Labour Minister to do it.