After the general election, all the briefing from the Government was that it was ready to take what it called "difficult decisions" to fix this housing disaster. In recent weeks, it has certainly been difficult to watch this Government's chaotic decision-making - its U-turns, drip-feeds and hasty rewrites of flawed press releases. Undoubtedly, the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Browne, have made decisions as difficult for renters as they could possibly have managed. Last week, and again just now on Leaders' Que…

He made it sound like it was a "gotcha" moment for him.

It is hardly gotcha. Of course, we welcome decisions that are taken by the Government that we believe will fix the housing crisis. We support the extension of RPZs across the country, but not a hollowed out version of RPZs that offer no real protections for renters. This was not a gotcha moment for landlords because last week he gave them a generous nine months' notice of his mooted plans. The net effect of that was obvious. Some signalled their intention to hike rents quickly before their investment property came …

People will gather to send a strong message to the Government. It is time for a radical reset of housing policy. No more incoherent policy changes. We need to see the radical reset the Housing Commission has called for because only the State has the deep pockets necessary to underwrite the construction of homes at the scale that is needed. The Government must scale up its effort and ambition, not waste time and money on "Bertienomics" era tax breaks for developers or ineffectual apartment design changes. One promis…

We cannot. We are not in the Government.

Anybody watching will be wondering when the Government is going to take political responsibility for the housing crisis. He is the Taoiseach and is in government. His party and Fine Gael have effectively governed together for the best part of a decade and yet, he is resorting to throwing critiques at the Opposition for not building homes. We are in opposition. The Labour Party, as the Taoiseach well knows, produced a costed, detailed plan on housing and on the transformation of the Land Development Agency into a St…

The Government has to take responsibility and deliver the homes people need.

You did not give us a chance. You had done the deal with Michael Lowry.

That is not true.

Hear, hear.

I want to raise the pressing issue of institutional abuse. We know that survivors deserve justice and fair redress but for far too long institutions, and religious-run orders in particular, have been able to evade accountability for abuse carried out under their watch. Last year, we saw the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church recording more allegations of abuse than in any other year since it was established. We know there is still a great deal of historical legacy that needs to be tackl…

It will be introduced.

I will write to the Taoiseach.

There is a real concern that we will be simply unable to meet our targets. Figures from the CSO, published last week, show 22% of Ireland's electricity in 2024 was consumed by data centres and that demand had increased by 10% in one year. We recently saw the Secretary General of the Department of the environment raising concerns about the potential conflict between expanding data centres and meeting housing needs, particularly due to climate targets and energy demands. It seems that Ireland must now import signific…

There are some indications that, for example, data centres themselves can drive change and ensure they become net zero but we need the Government to take the lead on this.

We are not seeing that happen currently.

These are Taoiseach’s Questions, not questions to the Deputy.

I have two questions about the task force. We see a huge number of issues in Dublin that need to be addressed urgently. There is a deteriorating public realm, vast numbers of vacant sites and derelict buildings, mouldy and damp social housing, including issues with social housing complexes in my constituency, and a lack of joined-up thinking about keeping spaces safe. Given the need for funding to be put in place to implement the recommendations of the task force, will the Taoiseach consider allowing local authorit…

The hotel bed tax.

I think it will be €12 million.