Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-02-12 ============================================================ Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow 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. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-12/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:56+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-12