The report yesterday on rents shocked a lot of people. I predicted, as did others, that this would happen but the scale of it has really shocked me. In County Laois a four-bedroom house has gone up 12.5% year on year, a three-bedroom one by 10% and a two-bedroom house, which is the type most in demand in the county, has gone up by 34%. That is in one year. Notices to quit are up and house prices are up. It is now €530,000 for a bog-standard house in Portlaoise in one estate. I am telling the Taoiseach that the Government cannot leave it totally to the market. We have seen where a laissez-faire approach that the market will sort it out has got us in the past. I hope the Taoiseach has not forgotten the crash and the noughties. What happened then was we had a laissez-faire approach and it led us into a black hole. The Taoiseach was there for that; he was a Minister then. I am asking him in a fair-minded way-----

In two seconds.

-----to please revisit this. There need to be some controls put in to protect tenants.

Thank you. The time is up-----

The fact that it takes a nurse's pay to pay a month's rent-----

-----the Taoiseach to respond.

-----shows there is something wrong.

Deputy, your time is up.

I appeal to the Taoiseach to do something.

Rents are too high overall. No-one is arguing about that. There is a lot of pressure on people. Supply is the only way to deal with it. What I would say on the reforms that came in is that the six-year tenancy rule is a very significant enhanced protection for existing tenants. Nothing like it was in place before. We are dealing with new tenancies here in terms of the Daft.ie index, but the vast majority of existing tenancies are not impacted in the same way at all. We need a long-term certain landscape in respect of the rental market. With housing, we are not leaving it to the market. The State is involved in every aspect of housing. Some €9 billion is being invested by the Government - taxpayers' money - to try to get housing going. We are at 36,000 houses and that is not enough. We are going to invest. You also need some degree of private sector money in as well-----

And more affordable housing.

-----to get to the €20 billion the Central Bank says is required to deal with the demand that is out there in respect of housing supply.