We have had more than a decade of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael presiding over a housing emergency and now the Government proposes to force ripped-off renters to carry the can for its failures. The Government's plan for the private rental sector is really Fianna Fáil's rent hike Bill. It can spoof all it wants; the only certainty from this move is rent will increase for every renter. It is only a question of when.

The average length of a tenancy is three and half years and many are much shorter, so the impact of this plan will be felt very quickly. All renters will be subject to large hikes over time. Those moving into new build properties will be hit with massive market rent from day one, while those who move frequently for work or education and regularly enter new tenancies will be absolutely hammered. We are talking about construction workers, healthcare workers in training and students who already struggle to find affordable accommodation being fleeced over and over.

Fianna Fáil's rent hike Bill is a bonanza for the big property funds, the vultures and corporate landlords. It is a blueprint to boost the profit of the big boys and screw over renters. That is the Government's plan. It is doing this during a persistent cost-of-living crisis where people are being hit with price hikes right across the board. In the past four years, the cost of the weekly shop has sky-rocketed by €3,000 per year for many families and renters are forking out an additional €7,000 a year on average in rent.

Where does the Taoiseach think people get the money? Everything within the Government's back-of-an-envelope plan is a jumble of contradictions. It is the product of a panicked Government at sixes and sevens, desperately seeking to defend a plan which more resembles a last throw of the dice gamble than an actual solution. It has been blunder after blunder.

The Government had to change the press statement announcing the plan because it made such a mess of things. The Taoiseach said one thing, the Minister said another thing and the left hand did not know what the right hand was doing. Nowhere in the announcement on Tuesday, or in the days that followed, was there any mention of Government immediately bringing forward legislation to extend rent pressure zones, RPZs, to the entire State. The Government was content to wait until March and expose renters to big hikes. By Thursday, lo and behold, the Government had changed its story and it was adamant that it was always its intention to bring forward that legislation. Taoiseach, pull the other one. The Government is only doing this now because it was called out on it.

Such is the mess now that we have Government TDs briefing against the housing Minister for, in their words, producing a plan that he cannot explain and that they cannot understand. I am happy to explain it to them. This is Fianna Fáil's plan to hike up rents; that is it. That is the bottom line. Cinntíonn Bille Fhianna Fáil chun cíos a ardú go rachaidh an cíos in airde do gach cíosaí. Níl orainn ach fanacht. Ní féidir leanúint leis seo.

The only way to undo the damage is to go back to the drawing board. By all means, extend RPZs to the rest of the State and to areas that should have never been left out in the first place. However, the Government has to drop the rest of the Fianna Fáil rent hike Bill. It is a crazy plan and renters simply cannot take any more.

I reject completely the Deputy's assertions. She is guilty of severely exaggerated commentary on the reform of the RPZs announced last week. The bottom line is that as a result of those reforms, renters will have stronger protections than ever before. All renters will be covered by RPZs. It will be interesting that the first item on the agenda of our RPZ reforms will be something that Sinn Féin will have no choice but to support. Despite all the bluster and hype, Sinn Féin TDs will go into the voting lobbies to support the very first measure of the reform package we announced last week.

It is interesting that Dr. Michael Byrne, who is a lecturer in political economy at the school of social policy, social work and social justice in UCD and who works with Threshold, has said the security of tenure measures announced last week are really significant. He said that, arguably, they are among the most robust protection for tenants in Europe. I am not saying that and no one on the Government side is saying it; it is someone has been involved in the area for quite some time. That is the case, because we have an effective end to no-fault evictions, where the landlord has four or more tenancies. New tenancies will now be guaranteed for six years. Tenancies with smaller landlords generally have a minimum duration of six years. With limited circumstances - more limited than before - smaller tenancies can end. I look forward to Sinn Féin either opposing those measures or surely having to vote for the additional protections we are going to bring forward. What will happen is that the contrast between the Sinn Féin hype and hyperbole, and what will happen when we put these legislative pieces through the House, will be a yawning gap. Surely Sinn Féin will have to vote for these additional protections.

The more fundamental point is that Sinn Féin has proposed a rent freeze for three years, which would damage supply. Overall, Sinn Féin's policy objective is to reduce the rental market. The party has an ideological hostility to the rental market and to the private market, more generally, in terms of construction. A freeze on rent increases would mean that no one could claim for maintenance costs or even the cost of inflation. Who is going to invest in new units with Sinn Féin's policy, because its solutions are simply wrong? Its whole proposition is incoherent.

The only way we can deal with the housing crisis is to dramatically increase supply. We have increased it from 2020 onwards to about 30,000 thousand units per year. Up to then, we had 20,000 per year. We want to get to 50,000 per year. We need public investment, which we are doing, as the State is the largest investor in the housing market at the moment, and we need substantial private sector investment. Sinn Féin has to acknowledge that. I know members of Sinn Féin have been out protesting and saying this is an emergency and so on. I agree; it is a crisis that we need to deal with as a society.

At least the Taoiseach admits it.

It begs the question, though, as to how Deputy McDonald could, to date, oppose up to 1,700 housing units in her own area, in Clonliffe College, and likewise in Cabra. If the Deputy is saying it is an emergency across the country, how come it is not an emergency in her constituency or in the areas where her party objects?

Hear, hear.

She simply cannot have it both ways. This duplicitous approach to housing has to end. What we need from Deputy McDonald are concrete solutions on how we increase supply so that we can get a situation where we can build 50,000 units a year.

It might interest the Taoiseach to know that, far from having an ideological objection to rental accommodation, I was raised in rental accommodation. Imagine that.

The Deputy's party's policies-----

I have no ideological objection. As a matter of fact, I am determined that renters, whether long-term renters, as is the case with my family, or shorter term renters, which is the more normal experience, are not fleeced and gouged in the way that is currently happening. I do not know how blunt or clear we have to be with the Taoiseach, but renters now pay thousands of euro more than just a few short years ago, and all the additional costs due to the cost-of-living crisis.

The Taoiseach can stand up and bluster and cast aspersions at me all he likes, but he is in government, he is the Taoiseach and it is his housing Minister who is proposing a Bill that will have one definite effect, namely, higher rents for renters.

The time is up. I thank the Deputy.

I appeal to the Taoiseach-----

I thank Deputy McDonald and call on the Taoiseach to respond.

-----not to do that. Renters have had enough.

I thank the Deputy.

The Taoiseach must have some decency and some consideration for people who are struggling.

Deputy McDonald has none.

I thank the Deputy. The time is up. She should allow the Taoiseach to respond.

I am not talking about Deputy McDonald personally; I am talking about the Sinn Féin Party.

Blah, blah, blah.

The Sinn Féin Party's policy objective over time is to reduce the size of the private rental sector.

That is not true.

That is not true.

If Deputy McDonald looks at her policies in recent years, they have been designed to suppress supply in the private rental market. We have built more social houses in the past four years than have been built since 1975.

Some 36,500 new social houses were built.

Who is in government?

In 2023, 12,000 social houses were delivered and 10,500 were delivered last year.

You are benchmarking against your own failures.

These are record numbers of social housing delivery.

There are record rents.

Deputy McDonald says her party can go to 30,000 overnight. She has not outlined how she would get to 30,000 overnight.

It will increase rent.

The measures and reforms proposed last week will cap rent for all existing tenants to 2%. Deputy McDonald knows that.

It will increase rent. The Taoiseach knows that.

I thank the Taoiseach and call Deputy Bacik.

Rent increases for any new tenancies, post-2026, will be linked to the CPI.

I thank the Taoiseach. The time is up. I call Deputy Bacik of the Labour Party.

The Taoiseach does not care about renters. We have got his answer.