Your time is up. Deputy Paul Murphy.

Fianna Fáil's former leader and Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has engaged in disgusting racism in Dublin Central, saying we have “too many” immigrants and saying, "The ones I worry about are the Africans", and that, "We can’t be taking in people from the Congo and all these places." He said he worries about the next generation of Muslims. Bertie Ahern doing it makes the agenda very blatant: scapegoat immigrants and divide ordinary people. Why? So that nobody blames Bertie Ahern, Fianna Fáil and the landlords and developers Fianna Fáil has allowed to profit from the housing crisis.

People from the Congo did not take corrupt payments from developers to blow up the property bubble. They were never found by a tribunal to have been untruthful in explaining how €400,000 in today's money passed through their bank accounts. Muslim children did not crash the economy, causing years of misery and austerity for ordinary people. Unlike Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, they never rolled out the red carpet for developers and vulture funds. They are not the ones who sowed the seeds of the current housing disaster and they were not the ones who refused to maintain council flats and then voted to increase council rents. All of this is an act of mass distraction. From what? From the horrendous conditions many people in Dublin Central are forced to face every day. Right across Dublin city there are council tenants living in conditions that nobody should be asked to live in.

Yesterday, in Sheridan Court on Dorset Street, we met a single mother with two children with additional needs. She is three months living without usable water because it is scalding hot. She has to bring her children to her mother's house in Fairview to bathe them. Her bedroom is severely damp and mouldy. I am holding up a photo of her bathroom - we can see the mould. Another woman is sleeping in the living room as her bedroom has been rendered uninhabitable due to leakages in the ceilings and walls. This is a photo of the hole in the wall of her bedroom. Another resident's ceiling collapsed in places in January. Her flat is not in a livable condition but she has nowhere else to go. Her ceiling can be seen in this photo. The only work done for the people in Sheridan Court has been superficial. However, it is not just Sheridan Court; it is right across Dublin city.

To add insult to injury, Dublin City Council has hiked these people's rents by 30%, an amount that many of them simply cannot afford. Councillors from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour and the Green Party shamefully voted against a budget amendment that would have stopped that rent hike. I have two simple questions for the Taoiseach. I want answers to them. First, will he commit to the residents of Sheridan Court and other flats around Dublin city that this treatment will not continue and that people in 2026 will not be asked to live like this? Second, will he support a reversal of these unfair rent increases in Dublin city and drop his agenda to hike council rents right across the country?

In the first instance, we have a very clear asylum system in this country which is fair and robust. I do not approve of any commentary that would in any way undermine any particular ethnicity or any person with a particular ethnic background. I have been very clear about that. My understanding is that the former Taoiseach, Mr. Ahern, has resiled from those comments and says he has no issue with people who come through our asylum process. I want to be very clear from my perspective and my party's perspective that we do not approve of those specific comments. They were in a conversation which was subsequently published. It was not, therefore, a distraction process by anybody here because no one could anticipate that any commentary of that kind would be in the public domain. Be that as it may, our position is very clear. We have a fair and robust asylum process which has accelerated a lot. The Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, has outlined that. Then we have a broader migration narrative. People come from Europe, the EFTA countries and beyond, who work in our economy and our health service. We have many Irish citizens with different ethnic backgrounds who play a very full and meaningful contribution to Irish life.

Regarding the broader issue of housing, this Government, in particular over the last number of years, has substantially step-changed the provision of social housing. This year, up to 9,000 were built, compared with very low numbers four or five years ago. There has been a very substantial step-change in the provision of public housing itself. Significant funding is also made available to local authorities, and particularly Dublin City Council, in respect of regeneration, refurbishment and maintenance. In the first instance it is a matter for Dublin City Council to make sure its housing stock is properly maintained and refurbished. We establish local authorities. We give them powers and remit. Anytime they do anything then, the Dáil - or elements of the Dáil - in a reflex wants to come back in and say that local authority does not have any space or parameters in which it can develop policies itself. These are elected representatives of many parties, including the Deputy's, and they have to organise and run their councils in a sustainable manner. That is a matter for the councils. Government does not dictate every single item of local authority policy. What we have tried to do in the last while is to say to councils that they need to zone more land for housing. I do not know whether the Deputy agrees with that but we believe councils need to do this. We need more space for local authority housing, social and affordable housing, and affordable rental as well. That is the most fundamental-----

I thank the Taoiseach. He will have an opportunity to come back in. I call Deputy Murphy.

-----way to meet the housing needs of people in Dublin Central, and, indeed, across the country.

On Bertie Ahern, I will just say this. What people say when they do not think they are being recorded is actually more valuable than what they say when they know they are being recorded. It suggests a dirty game used on doorsteps by Fianna Fáil to divide and rule ordinary people, and to have them not blaming the people the Taoiseach represents - the developers, the landlords, the people who get rich from the housing crisis. Instead, it is better to blame the people from Congo or wherever else.

Regarding the council flats and the rents issue, the Taoiseach cannot have it both ways. He is the Taoiseach; the leader of a party which has councillors. He has a responsibility and a connection with the votes, for example, to increase council rents. Does he stand over those increases or not? They are not doing that out of nowhere. It is a nationally driven project. We can look at the Government's programme for Government increasing council rents. We can look at this new programme, which has not been published yet, which points to massive increases in council rents. We can look towards the plan to merge cost-rental and social housing.

I thank Deputy Murphy. The Taoiseach to respond.

The other thing is the Department. The Department pulled the plug on Oliver Bond. It is the Department-----

The Taoiseach will now respond.

-----that has pulled the plug on regeneration. The Government cannot wash its hands of it and just say it is the council.

The same as everybody else, the Deputy's time is up. The Taoiseach, please.

First, that was an unacceptable comment the Deputy made. That is not the Fianna Fáil approach and it is not Fianna Fáil policy. By the way, the Deputy is not shy himself in terms of mischaracterising people, spinning and deliberately exaggerating positions of different politicians on an ongoing basis. You are no angel yourself when it comes to politics, and do not pretend that you are.

You will not catch me saying racist things, even if you record me secretly.

Deputy, please.

The other problem is on councils. I have been on a city council. I have always divided the council between those who genuinely want to govern or run a city, as opposed to those who just oppose everything and never voted for a budget in their life. Did the Deputy every vote for a budget in his life on a city council?

No.

I was never on a council.

He probably did not.

They are rhetorical questions.

Yes, but your party, I mean. Those you represent. They never do.

They never do.

You want more and more, and more services. Services here, services there, but when it comes to the annual budget, you guys never vote for them.

Never.

However, other politicians have to step up with a bit of guts and courage to vote to make sure a city runs. That is the difference between the Deputy's politics and the politics of the majority-----

It takes a lot of courage to increase rents on council tenants.

Time is up Taoiseach. I call Deputy Gogarty.

That is the fundamental point I would make. By the way, the city council did not pull funding-----

Taoiseach, your time is up. Thank you.

-----from Oliver Bond flats. That will be sorted out very quickly.