The issue I am raising with the Minister is house prices and the availability of housing. In County Laois, house prices are up, rents are up, homelessness is up and notices to quit are up. Despite the best efforts of the council, which has a good active housing programme, the homeless figures increased by 60% when you compare December's figures with those last year. The Government's social housing target for 2025 was 10,000 - a low enough, modest target. In the first nine months of the year, just 3,143 were constructed - 31%. Cost rental and affordable to buy targets were not met, with just 925 cost rental and 563 affordable purchase delivered. Rents in Laois on new tenancies are up by 12.1% in one year according to Daft surveys. A small house in Kilminchy, a suburb of Portlaoise, is advertised for €2,100 per month. That is more than €500 a week. Workers cannot afford that. It is way over what people can budget for.

House prices are up 60% on average compared with 2020. Notices to quit are being issued every day. I do not know if the Minister is getting that in his office, but I am certainly getting it. There has been a sharp rise in the number of notices to quit since Christmas. Some rental housing is not yet registered with the RTB and there is no tenancy agreement in place. A notice to quit can just be verbal. I saw one last week that was sent to a girl by text. Before the Minister tells me this is illegal, I know it is. The tenants know it is illegal, but tenants cannot complain because they are in such a vulnerable position and are trying to get permission to stay there longer. Renters in some areas are going to face a 10%, 20% and 30% hike on 1 March and after 1 March. Laois will be one of those areas. Rents on new tenancies can be then set at the highest rate of the market - I just read out one case to the Minister - and thereafter 2% every year on top of that. There is a particular cohort of low- and middle-income workers, workers who are generally earning between €35,000 and €65,000. They cannot keep up with the rent hikes and cannot get on a local authority housing waiting list because they are over the income threshold, but they do not have sufficient income or savings to get a mortgage. Delivery of cost-rental and affordable purchase homes are key to sorting this out. We need to be able to get them into a situation where they can either buy an affordable home or rent one. The Government needs to scale up affordable and cost-rental housing.

Will the Government now take action to head off the inevitable sharp rent hikes on 1 March and thereafter for workers and families who will not be able to afford them? Will the Government and the housing Minister increase the number of cost-rental and affordable to purchase homes being constructed in County Laois and other counties? Can the Minister's Department and the Department of local government review the income thresholds for rented council housing to allow more low-income households to get on that ladder?

Over the negotiation of our capital plan, the Government took a view that we have clear priorities. Critically, we know that if everything in an economy is a priority, nothing is a priority. In the €19.1 billion that we are going to spend this year, there are four clear priorities. Housing is number one, along with the enablers of housing in water, wastewater, energy costs and transportation, which are key to unlocking housing. For every single person in this State, it is one of the critical things. You have to see a trajectory for owning your own home, for getting the keys to your own home or to be supported in accommodation if you do not have the means to do so. That is why this Government has worked to ensure we are prioritising housing.

If the Deputy looks at the CSO data that was published at Christmas, apartment completions are up 30% year-on-year for the first three quarters of 2025 compared with the previous year. Other scheme dwellings have seen a significant increase, with 12,200 for schemes and single dwellings, one-off houses, at about 4,136. The first-time buyer rates are at record levels. A total of 27,000 drew down mortgages to September - 60% of the market share. That is the balance we have had a huge challenge in reversing over the last seven years. We now have first-time buyers at that level of drawdowns in the market share. At this point, we have 29,000 social housing units that are at varying stages of completion in the cycle that will be coming into our economy. We also know in terms of our first-time buyers that we have 24,335 in the first three quarters of the year, which is up 13% year-on-year. That is why the Government is really focused on making the changes that are going to bring more affordable housing into the economy, to ensure that we have options for people who want secure tenure for renting in terms of our cost rental model, for those who are most vulnerable in social housing, and also the opportunity to buy and own your own home, like the first home scheme, which gives that opportunity, as well as the help to buy scheme, which has helped thousands of families across our economy get the keys and realise their ambition of owning their home.

I assure the Deputy that this is one area that is being supported by record capital on behalf of the Government to ensure that people get that opportunity. Year-on-year, the Deputy will see huge improvements, as the data shows. The Deputy only has to look at the CSO data. It is the gold standard. If you go around the country and look at the construction sites, people can see diggers on the ground, builders there and housing being delivered which is of the highest quality it has ever been in the State.

I thank the Minister for his reply. He quoted different sets of figures from the CSO. I am quoting figures from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Yes, it has to be a priority, but the Government needs to scale up the delivery of cost rental and affordable to buy for that wedge of people, workers and families, who are caught just above the threshold for social housing but below the level of income that would make getting a mortgage achievable . One of the things I would say to the Minister, and I have said it to successive Ministers for housing, is that we need to reduce the bureaucracy around the construction of social, affordable and cost-rental housing. We need to work to standard plans. This is how the big developers are doing it. They are doing it and they are selling the houses like hot buns. There is no problem with that. People do not mind if their house in Laois looks the same as a house in Cork. The Department insisting on councils starting with a blank canvas for every scheme is not the way to go because it is costly, with architects' fees, etc., and it slows the production of houses. We need to mass-produce affordable to-buy and cost-rental housing. That is the message I am giving the Minister today. It will save money and time and it will get people housed.

We need to house those people who are squeezed in that middle cohort.

The Government has taken a number of actions across 2025 and into 2026 to try to speed up construction while ensuring that we are getting high quality housing into the marketplace. We have revised the national planning framework which ensures that we have the infrastructure matched with the zoned land to ensure that we are getting those high-quality houses. We have increased the amount of funding for the purchase of local authority housing. This is key to ensure security of tenure for those who fall into a position where their property is being sold. We have also increased significant investment in our State utilities, such as Irish Water, to ensure that we have the infrastructure and allowing developer-led initiatives. Again, this is trying to speed up the timeframe in which we can deliver housing. I absolutely assure the Deputy that, in terms of cost rental, affordable housing and social housing, it is a fact that we are at record levels. These have not been seen since 1970s in terms of social housing and also since the records go back to 2007 in relation to first-time buyers coming into the economy. This Government is critically supporting first-time buyers to get their keys to a new home. This is vastly different from what other politicians offer in this Dáil. They want to pull the rug from under them. We want to support them.

Hear, hear.