Deputy McDonald is creating the impression that 4,000 notices to quit in the past three months will result in 4,000 evictions and 4,000 more families needing emergency accommodation. That is not the case. Does the Deputy know how many new tenancies there have been in the past three months? There have been 19,000.

There have been 50,000 new tenancies in the past year. The truth is that the vast majority of people and families will find alternative accommodation. The relatively small number who will not, and we cannot know for sure how many that will be, will be provided with emergency accommodation-----

-----and whatever supports the State can provide them.

Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle. It is our view that extending the eviction moratorium until the end of January, the depths of winter, which is Sinn Féin policy, will just make things worse then. It is not a solution. These are the solutions. It is more social housing. We built more social housing last year than in any year since 1975. There has been no government in the Deputy's lifetime or mine more committed to social housing than this one, and we will build even more this year. It is the tenant in situ scheme, wi…

Once again, it is a decision for which Sinn Féin voted. Moving on, I ask, as I did yesterday, for a different approach from the Opposition. Instead of rhetoric, anger and words, I am asking it to help us to solve the housing crisis. It can do so in three ways. It can stop opposing new housing in their constituencies.

It can take the pressure off first-time buyers by ending its opposition to the help-to-buy scheme-----

-----and it can stop threatening small landlords with more taxes and regulations. If Sinn Féin does those three things it will help resolve the housing crisis. Will it do those things?

Will it do those things?

I acknowledge, as does everyone on this side of the House and all three parties in government - we are a three-party Government - we are facing a very serious housing crisis, indeed a housing emergency, that is affecting people in all sorts of different ways, whether it is people having to pay very high rents, people who are experiencing homelessness or people struggling to find their first place to buy in order to get on the housing ladder, to use that term. We have a housing deficit of probably around 250,000 uni…

In my previous response, I acknowledged the housing crisis and housing emergency, and the impact that is having on people. I acknowledged that many times. I continue to do so because it is important and right to do so. I have not said we have turned the corner on the housing crisis. I never said that. The Tánaiste said we turned the corner on new home construction-----

-----which is clearly a different thing. He is correct in that regard. When I see posters for the Deputy's party, I see the three things it says it stands for. One of those things is honest politics. It is not honest politics to falsify quotes, misquote me or misrepresent the Tánaiste. That is not honest politics. We are hoping for a different type of politics from the Deputy. It is clear that we will not get that from her, unfortunately. Certainly, it is not my intention or desire to try to deceive anyone. I set o…

-----and more first-time buyers bought their first home in January this year than any year since 2010. Is it because she does not want those things to be true?

I am always curious to hear when any Deputy in this House or any politician starts a contribution by telling somebody what they think because it is usually a prelude to a strawman or a trope, and that is basically what Deputy Barry has engaged in once again. I do not believe that there is an acceptable level of homelessness. I certainly do not believe the current levels of homelessness are acceptable. I can speak for the entire Government and our side of the House in that regard. The Deputy again makes the ideologi…

We are the Government that brought in two eviction bans. We are the Government that brought in cost rental housing and made a new form of public housing possible for the first time, and we are going to ramp that up in the years ahead. How does any of that fit in with the ideological trope Deputy Barry has tried to impose on us?

The Deputy may have forgotten this but I led a minority Government for three years - the previous one - and it lasted for a lot longer than anyone thought it would. There have been times in this Dáil when this Government did not have a majority, yet we have won the votes and won them by clear margins and we will do so again today. I can reassure the Deputy that this Government is built to last. The difference is that we have a policy disagreement here. It is the Deputy’s view that extending the eviction moratorium …

A number of different funds are operated by the European Union through the European Commission and there are very strict rules around those funds. One of those funds is the Brexit adjustment reserve fund. Ireland secured just over €1 billion from the fund but we are limited in how we can spend it. For example, we are able to spend it on upgrading our ports facilities and we have done that in Rosslare and in other ports around the country. We are able to spend it on fisheries and much of the money has gone to the fi…

We would have liked to have spent a lot of it helping businesses, for example, and the agricultural sector but in order to do so, we have to demonstrate that those businesses have lost their profits or have gone into the red solely as a consequence of Brexit. Given the increased trade that has occurred between Britain and Ireland, the performance of business and rising incomes, this did not fit the criteria. When money from one fund is not spent, it can be moved to another fund, and we have moved this money to anot…

Irish Water has a capital programme of over €1 billion a year, and it is there to provide water and wastewater to free up lands for housing. Understandably, it prioritises those sites where the most housing can be delivered first, and that makes sense from my point of view. There is a specific programme for small towns and villages to allow them to have the water services they need to allow for a natural increase.

I believe every town and village should be able to increase its population and have a natural increase. We will be sitting down with Irish Water over the course of the year to see whether we can provide it with additional funding to service more sites but, as I said earlier, the bottlenecks we face in Ireland are no longer a lack of money. We have never had a bigger budget for housing than we have now. We have never had a bigger budget for health than we have now. We have never had a bigger budget for investment in…

It is not quite that but it is certainly a commitment to extending the hours and improving the services in Waterford.