I have sat here since 9.12 a.m. and listened to most of the Opposition contributions. There has been nothing new. There has been no new policy.

I think Deputy Barry has in probably the best way just explained and given an example of the simple sloganeering and vitriol that has been the main part of this debate today. I wish to turn to the facts, which are that everyone on these Government benches, and I assume everyone in this House, wants to do their level best to tackle the housing crisis. I say that as the Minister responsible for housing. There is no lack of compassion on this side of the House, yet the Opposition has tried to paint it as such. That is…

We will not be diverted from the job we have to do because we have a responsibility as the elected Government of this country to make real strides in housing. I refer to some facts which some will not like. In the first year of Housing for All, 30,000 new homes were delivered, which is indisputable. There are more new social homes than since 1975, which is also indisputable. Affordable homes are available to purchase through local authorities for the first time in a generation, with thousands more to come and appro…

-----and 253 affordable homes in Ballymastone, Donabate. That is replicated across the country. I am used to that by Sinn Féin, the party of objectors. I have a lot of regard for our Labour Party colleagues and have found them constructive in the main in the past-----

I welcome Deputy Sherlock. The Labour Party should not go down that road. Deputy Bacik's claim that the Labour Party will deliver 1 million new homes over ten years and to then say they are retrofitted or refurbished homes is something people will see through. The Labour Party should not go down the road that their colleagues in Sinn Féin have.

Time and again, Sinn Féin, ably supported by the Social Democrats-----

-----will oppose every single measure this Government takes.

To give an example for the serial objector and interrupter Deputy Ó Broin-----

-----every measure for first-time buyers, such as the help to buy grant of €30,000, which has been availed of by 37,000 households, has been opposed.

The first homes scheme, which has helped more first-time buyers since 2014 - some 1,200 already in eight months - was also opposed by Deputy Ó Broin. Inexplicably, Deputy Ó Broin and his party opposed grants of up to €50,000 to bring vacant homes back into use, which the Labour Party said it wants to do.

Those are the facts and the Deputy does not like them. I say to Deputy O'Reilly to stop objecting to housing in Fingal.

The pandemic does not matter, no?

That is not true.

Brilliant stuff Pearse.

I move amendment No. 1: To delete all words after "That" and substitute with the following: "Dáil Éireann declines to give the Residential Tenancies (Deferment of Termination Dates of Certain Tenancies) Bill 2023 a second reading consequent on Dáil Éireann’s passage of the following motion on 22nd March, 2023: — the Government agreed on 7th March that the ‘Winter Emergency Period’ under the Residential Tenancies (Deferment of Termination Dates of Certain Tenancies) Act 2022 would come to an end on 31 March 2023, wi…

It has continually changed its position on the ban, saying, on the one hand, that it would remove no-fault evictions permanently, while, on the other hand, saying it would not allow the ban to continue past New Year's Eve. I am not surprised by this. It has also argued for an exemption from the current winter eviction ban to be provided for owners of rental properties to be able to evict in order to occupy those homes. Yet, Sinn Féin's Bill does not include such an exemption. It must have decided that it does not s…

Sinn Féin did not even support emergency planning powers when the Government brought them forward in December. It now claims that these are essential to tackling the crisis but it did not support them when they were brought forward. Sinn Féin did not even mention cost-rental in situ purchases in the alternative 2023 budget but now criticises the Government for not introducing it sooner. This Government introduced cost-rental.

Sinn Féin talks about it. Sinn Féin states that we need a plan to stop the exit of small landlords from the rental sector, but its plan, written in black and white, is to impose a tax of €400 on 150,000 small and medium-sized landlords. It is entitled to its various contradictory positions but it is not entitled to its own facts. It claims nothing has been done during the period of the current moratorium.

That is simply not true.

Here are the facts.