As we all know, it has been raining solidly since what feels like forever and communities across the country continue to deal with the fallout of flooding. In that time, my office has also been flooded - with pleas for help from terrified renters who are starting the new year with eviction notices. Things were already bad enough for tenants, but the Government's appalling new rent law has given landlords an effective amnesty on rent hikes; an incentive to evict. It passed the Dáil last night by a small majority. People know they will now be forced to pay even higher rents for new tenancies. That is guaranteed. Perhaps that is the reason the debate was guillotined by the Government last night. It was forced through by Government after reaching only the ninth of 69 amendments. That is the signature move of the Minister, Deputy Browne. It is a nifty trick to avoid accountability and avoid light being shed on just how daft these housing plans are. Last year, debate on every single Bill from the Minister's Department was guillotined. Not one full Report Stage was taken in the Dáil. This new year, the term has kicked off with the same thing again on highly controversial legislation. It is bad governance from a bad Government, and this is a bad week for housing policy.

It is one year since stroke politics delivered us this regressive tripartite coalition with the Lowry-Healy-Rae Independents. In truth, we are seeing the impact of this arrangement and their influence across housing policy. Let us take short-term lets. We all know they are cannibalising housing supply across the country. I know the Tánaiste wants to deal with this but this week, the Government again watered down its own proposals. Instead of towns with a population exceeding 10,000, the Government's regulations, whenever they eventually come into effect, will only apply to populations of more than 20,000. This is clearly a concession to the Lowry-Healy-Rae Independents. How curious it is that the population of Killarney is 14,000. We know what the results are.

The Simon Communities’ Locked Out of the Market report, published this week, which the Tánaiste mentioned earlier, found zero properties available to rent within standard HAP limits across all 16 areas surveyed. Just 31 properties were available even at the higher discretionary rates, which is a pathetic 3% of all listings. Our Labour Party housing spokesperson, Deputy Sheehan, has acknowledged, as we all do, the flawed nature of HAP, but it is supposed to get people out of homelessness. I am glad that the Government is reviewing HAP limits, but what good is that when there is literally nowhere to rent? What are people who are contacting my office, and all our offices, with news of eviction notices supposed to do? What are they to do? I am working with one woman, a civil servant, who is being evicted from her home now. She tells me of her grave distress and constant worry and anxiety. She said the property has been her home for the last 14 years, but she now has nowhere to go. Some 5,000 children are homeless and 17,000 people are in emergency accommodation. Where are they to go? It has been a bad week for Government housing policy, but renters, families and children in homelessness are the ones living with the consequences. What is the Tánaiste doing to address this?

I thank Deputy Bacik very much. I take the point about having enough time in the Oireachtas to tease through things. I would also balance that point with the fact that there is a housing emergency and every day matters. Every day we do not take a decision is a day where progress is not being made at enough speed or enough pace in relation to housing supply. We have been very clear as a Government for quite a sustained period of time as to the changes we wanted to make in relation to the rental market. I do not think, and the Deputy would expect me to say this, that her analysis of the Bill we have put before this House, and which has passed this House, is balanced. If she looks at Dublin Simon Community's comments - and I am not suggesting that the Dublin Simon Community is supportive of all aspects of the Bill; it is certainly not - it did acknowledge a number of positive aspects of the Bill, on which I would hope we could see acknowledgement across this House, including the expansion of the rent pressure zones on a nationwide basis. That is something I am not sure the Deputy would have predicted this Government was going to do. It is probably something lots of people in opposition called for us to do, and we did. As a result, there are counties that did not have rental protections in place that now do, including County Donegal and other places as well.

We have really brought in a very strong tenant protection regime in Ireland, and that is acknowledged by people working in this sector and people working in homeless organisations too. We have to balance that alongside recognising that we can have all the rental protections in the world, but we also need places to rent. This Government is getting criticised in both directions and that is usually a sign that we are probably trying to get the balance right here. What we are also doing is trying to stimulate supply because otherwise, it is an academic conversation. We need more homes for people to rent. Yes, many of those homes will be built with money from this State and direct money to local authorities, but also with money through agencies of my own Department, such as the Land Development Agency, LDA. In fairness, the Deputy's party put forward ideas around how it would have liked to see that evolve. We have tried to expand its role as well.

We now have one of the strongest rates of home completions in the European Union, with 5.9 homes being completed per 1,000. The EU average is 3.3. The Deputy referenced that constituent or person who contacted her. I do not in any way dispute that there is a housing emergency in this country. I do not in any way dispute that the challenge is really acute for people. However, I also know that the remedy to that challenge is more supply. It is building more homes.

There are two specific recommendations the Deputy touched on regarding HAP and short-term lets. In our housing plan, we have committed to acting on both of them this year. In relation to HAP, the Deputy has acknowledged that we are reviewing the limits. That review will be completed in the first half of this year. I acknowledge and thank my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Burke, for his work on that. In relation to short-term lets, we have to have the register up and running by 20 May. We did want to get this right, though. This is a balance, and I am sure some of the Deputy's colleagues from places outside of Dublin, respectfully, or outside the greater Dublin area, would make this point too. We do not want to have an unintended consequence where there are areas that really rely on short-term lets for the tourism sector as well. It is about making sure that the juice is worth the squeeze in terms of getting extra homes back into rental. We thought 20,000 was a good balance in relation to that.

I think we can agree on one thing. There is a housing emergency.

Yes.

There is no doubt about that. I have certainly welcomed, as have my Labour colleagues, positive aspects of the legislation. However, the unfortunate truth is that these are undermined by the provisions that enable rent hikes, which incentivise rent hikes and incentivise evictions for the purpose of rent hikes. That is the problem, and it is a problem that renters across the country are experiencing. The real truth also, which nobody in Government is willing to admit, is that there is no evidence that this will work. The Tánaiste says the Government is doing this in order to ramp up supply, but there is no evidence that will work. Indeed, I am hearing from landlords in my constituency who are telling me they are leaving rental properties. They are not going to rent out any more. Why? Because of the uncertainty and the enormous number of changes there have been. The reality, again, is that we need to have significant State intervention here. The Tánaiste acknowledged that the Labour Party put forward very strong proposals in the last election campaign in order to see the State deliver at scale and ramp up the Land Development Agency to create a State construction company. Only that will enable delivery at the scale that is required to deliver the homes people need.

I did acknowledge it. I acknowledged during the election campaign and in the potential programme for Government talks after the election that the Labour Party had put forward constructive proposals. I do acknowledge that. We have a different landing zone, in that I think the Labour Party wanted a new State agency. I am not trying to misrepresent its position, but our view was to evolve the Land Development Agency. I think the Labour Party had a different proposal. I acknowledge that there was constructive engagement. I am not taking from that. We do have to take measures when it comes to supply, however. I say this respectfully. The Deputy made a point about landlords in her constituency. This is a point I am making. Sometimes, we come into the Dáil and we are told by the Opposition that we are taking all these measures to help landlords. Then, people go back to their constituencies and hear landlords saying that, hang on a second, this is actually introducing it to be a protection for tenants that poses a challenge for them. In a housing emergency, there is no perfect set of policy measures, but we do have to use a whole range of levers to try to get housing supply going. That is what we are doing. There are encouraging signs that some of the decisions we took in the budget, some of which were vehemently opposed by the other side of this House, are having a positive effect. Forget about industry and forget about developers. We are hearing that now from the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, which is talking about the viability of apartments. We keep working on this every day.