At the outset, I want to acknowledge the death of former Minister of State and Labour TD for Waterford, Brian O’Shea. My condolences and those of the Labour Party are with his wife, Eileen, their family and with his community.

Let us talk about the Taoiseach’s so-called reforms to the rental sector. He has billed the Residential Tenancies Board amendment Bill as a reset of rental protections but in reality, it is yet another chaotic intervention – the seventh rewrite of rental rules in a decade. That fact alone tells a story of its own because the relentless churn deepens instability, turbocharges rents and creates new legal loopholes and uncertainties. The Taoiseach is dressing deregulation up as reform but creating a system so opaque that nobody understands their rights. Nationwide rent pressure zones sound meaningful until you read the small print. Allowing landlords to reset rents to so-called market value between tenancies will rip up those vital protections altogether. Effectively, it is rewarding eviction.

The Government’s plans are not completely meritless – we acknowledge that. It is positive to see six-year tenancies and restrictions on evictions by large landlords. Linking rent increases to inflation is better than the chaos renters face now. However, we can do so much more and we must do so much more for renters.

The Labour Party believes renters deserve a freeze now to give real breathing space while prices spiral. We know the modest positive gains are overwhelmed in this Bill and by Government policy by a plan that tries to fix market failure with yet more marketisation. The Taoiseach must know this will not work. His assurances collapse under your assurances collapse under scrutiny.

The proof is in the pudding and the Taoiseach’s housing pudding is inedible. Take the tenant in situ scheme. This was supposed to keep renters out of homelessness when their landlord sells but last year in the face of stalling sales under tenant in situ, the Taoiseach insisted to me that the scheme was working as planned. Now, we learn that Dublin City Council purchases under the scheme have collapsed by 70%. Just 77 homes were bought in a year. Eviction notices are landing in people's postboxes with no safety net for families. "Working as planned" really means working for nobody. We see the same pattern in social housing. Councils are increasingly taking enforcement action against developers who are breaching their legal duty to build social and affordable homes.

The Taoiseach knows the Labour Party has proposed transforming the Land Development Agency into a State construction company to ensure the State can build directly for the benefit of everyone. The notion of such an initiative seems to incense the Taoiseach. Instead, his policy relies almost exclusively on private developers for the delivery of social homes. This has been expensive, inefficient and ignored.

When will the Taoiseach admit that his policies on housing are failing? Will he shelve these new plans for renters and bring in real protections and real commitments for state-led delivery?

First, may I extend my deepest sympathies to the family of the late Brian O’Shea and to his wife, Eileen. I served with Brian in the House. He was a thorough gentleman and a wonderful parliamentarian. He was always calm and always thought of things in perspective. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

I find the Deputy’s presentation, if she does not mind my saying so, somewhat incoherent and a bit chaotic in the sense that one moment she uses the word "deregulation". I just cannot comprehend how she thinks a Bill, which will create a national rent regulation framework, is deregulation.

Of private rents.

She cannot have it each and every way. We will now have national rent control over the entire country and the Deputy calls that deregulation.

We will strengthen the protection for renters through the introduction of tenancies of minimum duration, which is an effective end to no-fault eviction. We are establishing a rent price register. In fairness, the Deputy acknowledged that but at the same time she called all of that chaotic. Both cannot be correct.

The arrangements to reset the rental market rate only every six years is important. First of all, six years is a bigger protection than would have been there heretofore but, second, there has to be a balance between attracting private sector investment in addition to the enormous public sector investment in housing. The Department of Finance estimates that to get to 50,000 houses a year, we need about €20 billion in the economy allocated and spent on housing. The State will not be in a position to find €20 billion every year for the next ten years and, therefore, we do need a balance. There is no question but that this emanated from the national Housing Commission although not the specifics. The national Housing Commission was very clear. The Deputy has said this time and again that the Government ignored the housing commission. We did not, actually. We moved on the recommendations pertaining to rent. It said the present situation cannot continue. You have to give permanent clarity and a degree of certainty to the market over a significant period of time and that is what this legislation will do. The reform of the rent pressure zones was necessary and was recommended by the Housing Commission.

Real investment in dwellings for the first three quarters of 2025 were up 12.7% vis-à-vis 2024. Completions for the first three quarters of 2025 were the highest since 2008. Planning permissions are up 29% and 50% on the second quarter of 2025. That is planning permissions in the third quarter of last year. Commencements in the fourth quarter of 2025 are up 50% on the previous quarter. The housing infrastructure and investment fund has been announced and there is a further €1 billion there over the next number of years.

I call Deputy Bacik.

The feedback from our budgetary measures is positive in terms of getting more apartments going in that particular sector.

I thank the Taoiseach for his kind words about the late Brian O’Shea. That is appreciated.

I did have to laugh when the Taoiseach used the word “incoherent” about my contribution. It is his housing policy that is incoherent. It is his measures on renters that are incoherent. Let me give him two examples. In Galway this week, with our Councillor Helen Ogbu, I heard about students renting Monday to Friday in Galway city who have to move all their possessions out of their apartments on a Friday, so that their landlord can rent out the apartment on Airbnb for the weekend. Where is the coherence in that for renters? Last night viewers of “Prime Time” will have been moved by the renter, Aoife McGrath, who broke down telling the story about how she had received her third no-fault eviction notice in four years and is now in her 30s desperately seeking somewhere to live.

These stories are not unique. We hear them all the time from our own constituents, from people desperately trying to find somewhere to rent. These so-called rental reforms in fact will create different classes of renters and will diminish protections for many. They lack coherence, as indeed does the Government's housing policy. When will we see real protection for renters and real delivery of homes at scale?

The case the Deputy just outlined would be covered by these regulations and she is opposing them. There is no point in raising individual cases here, with the correct empathy and so on like that, if she then proposes to oppose the very measure that would prevent three such evictions in a short number of years.

There were 5,450-----

That is exactly what this regulation is trying to counteract and deal with. More importantly, I take issue with the Deputy's construction company in terms of the substance behind it. Is she saying we are going to have direct labour in every local authority or direct labour by the State? Is that the model?

Fianna Fáil delivered homes at scale through a State construction company.

We have delivered 53,000 social houses since we came back in 2020 through local authorities and through approved housing bodies. That is a good mechanism for social housing and it is working. We need more affordable housing and we need more apartment building in addition to what we are doing on social housing. We are getting results on social housing, no question, where construction is at its highest since the 1970s. We are going to continue with that and increase it in the time ahead.