It has never been more difficult to be a renter. Rents are through the roof, and last year almost 20,000 eviction notices were issued to tenants. The single biggest cause of homelessness, as I am sure the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform knows, is evictions from the private rental sector. According to the Residential Tenancies Board, the average cost of a new rental is now €20,000 per year. It is €26,000 in some parts of the city and as much as €36,000 in others. New rents increased by almost 5% in the past 12 months and existing rents by 6%. Even in rent pressure zones, RPZs, rents are increasing by more than the 2% cap. In almost all of our cities - Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford - rents for existing renters rose by between 4% and 5% last year. Since 2020, under the watch of the Minister and his colleagues, rents have increased by an astonishing 40% and their renter's tax credit has been swallowed up by rent increases for landlords. All the while, the Government's failure to meet its social, affordable and private-for-purchase targets means many people who do not want to be in the private rental sector are trapped there in insecure and expensive accommodation.

During the election campaign, Fine Gael promised to retain RPZs. In its manifesto, the Minister's party stated that it would review the effectiveness of RPZs. There is no mention in the programme for Government of ending the caps. On Sunday, however, Micheál Martin suggested just that. He said that the Government is considering replacing RPZs when they expire at the end of this year. His comments read like the speaking notes of an industry lobbyist for institutional investors. The more important point is that they caused real concern among renters.

I have been inundated with emails and telephone calls. One women told me: "The rule at the current rate of 2% is the only thing between myself and my daughter and homelessness." This woman is 70. She works to pay the rent. Her daughter has special needs. She lives in my constituency and pays rent in of €1,477 per month. Ending RPZs or allowing landlords to reset rents between tenancies would mean she would face rent of €2,700. Another constituent told me he never knows when his landlord might end his tenancy but at least with RPZs he knows what his rent will be year on year. A third renter told me that ending RPZs "is going to drive up rents and make thousands of people homeless".

One very distressed tenant wrote to the Taoiseach. He copied me and others on his communication, which states: "If you honestly cared about renters, you would not be considering how to benefit private investors, but how to benefit renters."

I cannot stress enough the impact the Taoiseach's comments have had on renters. Any renters reading the front page of the Irish Daily Mail today would be even more concerned because apparently the Taoiseach told members of the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party that they should brace themselves for unpopular decisions. It seems that the partial row-back by the Taoiseach in Brussels yesterday was about as misleading as his claim that 40,000 new homes would be delivered last year.

Will the Minister provide some comfort to renters who are genuinely concerned about the Government's intentions and make clear that it will not break its election promises? Will he give a commitment not to take any action that results in renters having to pay even higher extortionate rents?

I thank the Deputy. We are all encountering many constituents in Dublin and across the country who are facing difficulties with rent rises and accessing affordable homes. That is why housing policy is the single biggest issue for the Government and why we want to take further action in the area of housing. I assure the House that the Government is absolutely committed to delivering more homes for people, either to rent or own, quickly. We are advancing further policy options on how we can do just that.

I want to be clear that the Taoiseach stated he is open to the possibility of developing an alternative system to RPZs, which will protect renters but which will also allow people to have a clear, stable environment in which to invest. This is not about increasing rents for tenants; it is about increasing supply, which will ultimately reduce rents. It is incumbent on all of us in this House to be willing to examine all policy options and look at different approaches and models, because it is clear that we need to build more homes and increase the pace at which we build them.

We fully recognise the need to protect and support renters. That is why we advanced further progress for renters with the renter's tax credit in the most recent budget. It is also why we legislated for tenancies of unlimited duration and restricted the level of upfront payments required from tenants. The Deputy will be aware that RPZs were introduced in 2016. They will be in place until the end of this year. That is why the Department of housing reviewed RPZs last year. The Department of housing has also asked the Housing Agency to undertake a review of the operation of RPZs. It is expected that this analysis will conclude in quarter 1 of this year in advance of the legislative timeframe I have set out. Any potential future policy options or amendments that arise from the review will be brought to the Government and considered carefully under the co-ordination of the Minister for housing.

Let me be clear. There is no predetermined outcome to this review. A well-functioning private rental market is a necessity and must work for tenants and landlords. As the Housing Commission noted in its report last year, the available evidence indicates that the impact of RPZs has been mixed. Eight years on, we need to ensure that the system is fit for purpose and protects tenants but that it does not deter landlords. Without landlords and investors, there is no private rental market.

Changes to any aspect of housing policy must be looked at in the round. We need a system that increases and encourages development activity and supply, reduces costs for homeowners and renters and provides for stability and certainty for all concerned. That is why we have a record level of capital investment in housing. As Minister for public expenditure, I will undertake a review of the national development plan. In the context of the latter, the role of the State will be strengthened under this Government when it comes to provision of social and affordable homes across our economy.

We also have to be honest. Analysis carried out by the Department of Finance shows that in order to build 50,000 homes per year, €20 billion in investment capital will be required each year. I expect the State's role in that to grow, but we have to secure the investment environment in order to ensure that we have more homes for people to rent, that we can strengthen affordability for future homeowners and that both of these will be part of the overall picture when it comes to housing policy.

We have to undertake a review in advance of the legislative timeframe relating to the end of this year. The Minister for housing will co-ordinate matters. The central focus of what we are doing is to protect renters but also to increase the number of rental properties across our country, particularly as we know there is a real shortage of supply.

The Minister is living in cloud-cuckoo-land. For the past number of weeks, there has been intensive lobbying on behalf of Irish Institutional Property, Property Industry Ireland and the Irish Property Owners Association all claiming, wrongly, in my view, that RPZs - as inadequate a protection as they are, they still provide form of protection - are the reason Government did not meet its targets last year. That is not true. The reason the Government did not meet its target of 33,000 new homes last year is because for the fifth year in a row it missed its social and affordable housing targets. The failure to meet housing need is on the Government, not on renters and the rent they pay.

Hear, hear.

The Government could scrap RPZs tomorrow and allow landlords to reset rents between tenancies and market rent, but not a single new home would be built. How do we know? We know because that was the case a number of years ago. Institutional investors were investing in the market when RPZs were first introduced. It is ECB interest rate rises that have caused the problem.

Given that renters are paying higher rents than ever before and have more insecure tenancies, the idea that this Government has their back is nonsense.

I thank the Deputy. The Minister to respond.

Will the Minister please confirm that the Government will not do anything that will increase the pressure on hard-pressed renters?

Let me absolutely clear. We want to protect renters across our country. We also want to increase the number of rental homes that are available for people who want to rent. Central to that proposition is increasing the number of homes built across our country. The unfortunate reality is that the Deputy's housing policy would result in a complete failure of housing supply if it was progressed.

No way.

The people have had their say on that. The Deputy's party's approach is not credible. It would abolish all the supports for first-time buyers, put back the work of the Land Development Agency for years and devise a new pseudo-form of home ownership, where someone would own their house-----

Is 40,000 houses the line the Minister is sticking to?

-----but not the land it was built on. Let me absolutely clear to the Deputy.

I ask the Minister to be clear to renters, not to me.

It is important that a new Government with a new mandate assesses housing policy in order that we can increase the supply of both homes that are available to rent and to buy across our country. It is in this way that the Government will take action over the coming months.