The Minister should look at the questions paper. That is not true.

That is not true.

Just not true.

That is absolutely not true. We wanted all of them to be affordable.

Not true. We wanted them all to be affordable. We did not want it sold to a private developer.

That is not an objection.

Untrue, untrue, untrue.

The Minister should answer the question.

The Taoiseach has claimed that 40,000 new-build homes would be completed this year. A report from the Central Bank published this morning rubbishes this claim and states it will be 8,000 homes short. Does the Taoiseach accept the findings of the Central Bank report? Given that another report published today shows that house prices have increased by 10% in the past 12 months, will the Taoiseach provide time this week to discuss these reports and the Housing Commission report that was published last May, which still …

It just will not do it.

We keep on raising it.

I want to ask the Taoiseach about stamp duty and the bulk purchasing of homes. There have been multiple instances of funds buying up housing estates. Earlier this year, 85% of homes in Belcamp Manor were snapped up by one fund. At the time, the Government agreed to review the ineffective 10% stamp duty rate on the bulk purchase of homes. That review has been concluded. The Taoiseach's colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Neale Richmond, said he would like to see the rate doubled. The Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Ma…

Which the Government is sitting on.

I wish to ask about the Housing Commission report. As my colleague said earlier, Dr. Aoibhinn Walsh, a leading paediatrician, is seeing children growing up in emergency accommodation presenting with rickets, skin conditions, including scabies, anaemia, faltering growth and extreme tooth decay. This is incredibly serious. The landmark report from the Housing Commission provides a number of recommendations to tackle the housing crisis. However, the Minister for housing has claimed most of the recommendations are alre…

I have.

I commend Ms Bláthnaid Raleigh, the Women of Honour and the women in the FAI for speaking out, which they should not have felt the need to do. I commend, in particular, Ms Natasha O'Brien for challenging homophobic abuse. I and many others like me enjoy a degree of freedom in our public spaces because people like Ms O'Brien defend us. It is a diminishing degree of freedom in our public spaces that has come under attack in recent years. Sadly, the degree of freedom is decreasing rather than increasing. Many of the i…

I also welcome the Bill, which the Social Democrats will support. The issue of the Bill is very much tied into what has been happening around students' accommodation needs. This example has been highlighted very well by Deputy Mairéad Farrell but it is one of many examples of exploitation of students when it comes to housing. Perhaps it is not intentional, explicit or anything like that, but if you look at student accommodation across a number of sectors, you will see that it is open season for students to be explo…

The ESRI report published today shows that the Government's housing targets are far too low. The Housing Commission report, which was published last May and is yet to be discussed in the Dáil, showed that the Government's housing targets are far too low, with records rents, record house prices and record numbers of people who are homeless. The dogs in the street know that the housing targets are far too low, so why is the Government dithering and delaying on publishing updated housing targets? Can we have time this…

On behalf of the Social Democrats, I support this Bill. I thank Deputy Farrell for bringing this Bill forward and I thank the students and student representatives who have worked on this Bill and have been campaigning on it from the different student unions and colleges, and from the USI - Aontas na Mac Léinn in Éireann. First, I take issue with the Minister of State's response and the core statement he put forward, basically arguing against regulation on the basis that any attempt to regulate could have a negative…

Shane O'Farrell was just 23 years old when he was killed in a hit and run. Shane was an exceptional young man and dearly loved by his family and his friends. He had a bright future ahead of him and this was cruelly cut short. The car the assailant was driving was pulled over by gardaí an hour before the incident. Inexplicably, the driver was allowed to continue despite having no insurance, multiple breaches of bail conditions and warrants out for his arrest. Less than an hour later, Shane had been killed. Shane's f…