-----involving all those people to overthrow a left-wing Government?

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta as a chuid ceiste. Rinne an Rialtas socrú deacair inniu. Tá buntáistí agus míbhuntáistí ag baint leis ach creidim gurb é an cinneadh ceart ar son leas an phobail. The Government today decided that the temporary eviction moratorium would end on a phased basis, as planned and previously announced, from the end of March. It was a finely balanced decision. There are pros and cons, but we made the decision which we believe is in the overall public interest. Why? It is for three reasons. …

There were about 2,700 exits from homelessness last year and 3,000 preventions. Perhaps the reason there were more exits from homelessness during the pandemic is that, because of the restrictions on domestic and international travel, there was simply more accommodation available, with people not coming into the country and tourists not taking up the accommodation. There were many other factors at play during the pandemic that helped to reduce homelessness, and that is now very evident. That the moratorium was not e…

As I explained earlier, we made this decision because we believe it is the right one in the public interest, which is the only reason we would make a decision of this nature. We weighed up the pros and cons, listened to the arguments and decided, on balance, this was the right decision for the three reasons I outlined. It has not been effective in reducing the number of people in emergency accommodation, which has increased every month the eviction ban has been in place. Second, it was beginning to create new forms…

I thank the Deputy. The decision we made today was not just a decision to allow the moratorium to lapse. We also made a decision to buy 1,500 homes where the landlord is selling up and the tenant is a social housing tenant. That will prevent hundreds, if not thousands, of families from going into homelessness. We decided to increase the number of social homes we will provide this year to in or around 12,000. Last year, we built about 8,000 new social homes, probably the highest number since 1975. We are going to do…

I answered the Deputy's question in the first part. We have made this decision and we believe it is the right one in the public interest. We know it is controversial and is going to be difficult to defend, but it is nonetheless, in our honest view, the right decision and in the public interest. Deputy Cairns mentioned being a leader, and I congratulate her on her recent election. Being a leader means standing over your decisions. I will stand over this decision. You cannot go around saying you want to help people t…

I am not sure I was quoted accurately on that. I do not believe this is about weighing up the balance between landlords and renters as if it is one versus the other. People need places to rent. If we do not have more places to rent, there will be longer queues of people trying to get rental properties and renters will pay higher rents. We need more landlords in the market in order to increase availability and reduce rents. We have lost about 40,000 landlords from the market in the past couple of years. We need to t…

A decision has to be made. We believe this is the right decision, in the round, in the public interest for the reasons I have outlined. I will finish on one matter Deputy Pringle talked about. I know he is interested in ideology. I am not particularly interested in ideology; I am interested in outcomes for people. The Deputy stated that the Government has a neoliberal ideology. Would a Government with such an ideology have built more social housing last year than in any year in my lifetime since 1975? Would a neoli…

Would a neoliberal Government have introduced the help-to-buy scheme, which has helped 30,000 people buy their first homes? Those people know who they are and know they would not have a home today under a left Government.

I thank the Deputy for acknowledging the fact.

It might be useful to inform the House of how much has been done by the Government while the moratorium has been in place. In the past three to five months, 5,000 new social housing units were built. A further 600 were released, 500 were bought and 1,500 voids were returned to use. An additional 500 emergency beds and 150 cold-weather beds were provided. Nobody can say, at least not factually and honestly, that the Government did not act while the moratorium was in place to provide additional social, permanent and …

As everyone in this House knows, we are in the teeth of a serious housing crisis. We need to build more homes, and we need to build them as quickly as possible. What councillors around the country have done is zone land around our towns, villages and cities for development. They have made the right decision in that regard. Of course, they have zoned the land that is most appropriate, namely, that which is near urban centres. In most cases, this is serviced land and it is the right land to be zoned. We want that lan…

It is reasonable for farmers to say, "This is my farm. I own this land. It has been in my family for generations and I don't want to develop it. I want to continue to farm it." That is why we have a mechanism in place to allow people to request that their land be dezoned. So far, 1,687 submissions have been submitted to local authorities by landowners. Local authorities are going to consider those submissions. If landowners do not get the answers they want, they have the right to appeal to An Bord Pleanála. It is i…

The matter raised by Deputy Fitzpatrick about retirement age is under consideration by the Tánaiste and the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. It does not just relate to the Defence Forces. There are other professions, such as the Garda, where the issue of a mandatory retirement age is in question. The matter is currently being considered by Ministers. In respect of the lapsing of the eviction moratorium, we are happy to facilitate statements later in the week, subject t…

The important matter raised by Deputy Bacik is also of concern to me and to anybody who saw the "Prime Time" programme last night. The profession of psychology is not regulated. There was a time when very few professions in Ireland were regulated. It was just doctors, dentists and a few others. Over time, we have added to the number of professions that are regulated. We want to add psychology to the list of professions regulated by CORU. However, we have run into some real difficulties. There is no common education…

We did consider an extension and a partial extension. On the recommendation of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and with the unanimous agreement of Cabinet, we decided that, on balance, an extension was not the right approach for the reasons I explained earlier. I will not accept the narrative, or the nonsense, that we somehow sat on our hands and did nothing for the past three to six months. I have set out what we have done. Some 5,000 new social homes were built in the past couple of months…

I thank the Deputy. For obvious reasons, I am not going to comment on evidence given in court, but regarding the issue the Deputy raises on regulating the psychology profession, we agree that it is desirable that it should be regulated. Since CORU was established, we have added a new profession pretty much every year. In the past, very few professions were regulated or titles protected. We have changed that over the course of the past ten years. Regarding psychology, it is not straightforward. It is complicated by …

I am glad to confirm the Electoral Commission is now up and running. It is an organisation that will need many resources and many teeth because we need to clean up politics. What Sinn Féin has been claiming about its finances is simply not credible. To say in 2019 it only spent €4,775 on all its local election candidates beggars belief. It cannot be true. I do not believe it. It is important that people who ran for Sinn Féin in the local elections in 2019 and received support come forward and say so, at least to cl…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. It also affects schools in my constituency, as the Deputy can imagine. The Department of Education has been doing a stellar job when it comes to its capital budget. New schools and extensions are being built all over the country. What has happened is that in many ways it has been doing such a good job that it is now ahead of profile on spending its capital budgets. As the Deputy will be aware, the cost of construction has also gone up and as a result a number of …

Give us a few weeks to sort it out.