Just not affordable homes.

There is no value for money when we are paying Bartra €400,000 for a social house. That is not value for money.

The Minister is responsible for a breach of the public spending code.

There is no cost rental in Oscar Traynor Road. That is not true.

The Minister just will not stick to the facts.

Not true.

That is simply not true.

Misleading the House again.

In Clonburris 11,000 homes were opposed by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

Misleading the House again. That is what the Minister is good for.

I thank the Minister for his opening remarks. As the Minister said, defects and shoddy building work continue to impact tens of thousands of private homeowners and social and private rental tenants across the State. Today's news about the additional cost to taxpayers arising from building practices in our public schools once again confirms not only the legacy of light-touch building control regulation and the underfunding of council building control departments, but also the need at every opportunity to strengthen …

I express my deepest condolences to the family, partner and friends of Ashling Murphy, and those in the wider community who have been devastated by her brutal murder. Listening to the public debate over the past number of days, one comment has stuck in my mind. It has been said that the issue here is not, in the first instance, the safety of women but the violence of men. Every single day, women face abuse, harassment, sexual and physical violence and, in far too many instances, death, because they are women. All w…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." As the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, will know, the number of adults and children living in emergency accommodation funded by his Department is rising. In October there were 6,317 adults and 2,513 children in such accommodation. As we all know, those figures do not capture the full extent of homelessness. They do not include women and children in domestic violence refuges funded by Tusla, adults and children in hostels not funded by the State or former asylum s…

I thank Wayne Stanley and the Simon Communities of Ireland for its work on this simple but important legislation. I also acknowledge all the members of the other political parties in opposition who co-signed this Bill, including those in the Labour Party, the Social Democrats, the Independent Group, People Before Profit-Solidarity, as well as my own colleagues. Everybody has said that legislation like this will be useful and that it will not solve all the problems in this area but that it will give us another tool …

I want to speak specifically to my amendments Nos. 3, 4 and 7 but I am also supporting the amendments of colleagues. The bottom line is that rents are too high and tenants simply cannot absorb any level of rent increase at this stage. We know, for example, that because new rental properties are not subject to the rent pressure zone caps, they are coming in at excessively high levels in some parts of Dublin, at over €2,000 per month for a standard two-bed unit, including in my constituency. Even where property is ca…

I move amendment No. 3: In page 3, lines 28 and 29, to delete “the relevant percentage” and substitute “0 per cent”.

I move amendment No. 4: In page 4, to delete lines 1 to 3.

I support the amendment. It is important to note that since the previous Government introduced its strategy for the private rental sector in 2016 to the end of 2020, we have lost more than 20,000 properties from the private rental sector. We do not yet have the data for 2021. At the same time, rents during that period have increased by 30% to 40%. What we got under the previous Government's private rental strategy is rising rents and falling supply. It is quite a bizarre situation. The Minister of State, Deputy Pet…

I move amendment No. 11: “In page 6, between lines 6 and 7, to insert the following: “Amendment of section 19B of Principal Act 4. The Principal Act is amended in section 19B(3) by the insertion of “where such a payment is part of a combined payment, including tuition and materials to a third level educational institution as prescribed by way of regulation by the Minister” after “month”.”.” The Minister will remember a powerful campaign by the Union of Students in Ireland, USI, earlier this year. It provoked a cros…

The rationale the Minister of State has given for the original provision, that is, that students might choose to pay more rent over a period of time to manage their financial affairs, is not the rationale that was given to us either by officials or the Minister when that legislation was passed. We were told the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science made a specific request to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to have this flexibility, not for students who…