-----to bring supply. If you do not have supply, prices will rise, without question, and Sinn Féin has never answered the question of supply.

You are just barren in terms of any ideas-----

-----or any substance around that issue.

First of all, ní aontaím leis an Teachta. Is éard atá i gceist ag an Rialtas ná i bhfad níos mó tacaíochta agus cosanta a thabhairt do na daoine atá ag íoc cíosa faoi láthair. Sin bun agus barr an chinnidh atá déanta ag an Rialtas. I do not agree, fundamentally, with the Deputy. Again, this is being portrayed as the Government wanting to undermine renters. That is such a ridiculous assertion. The origins of this come from the Housing Commission. The Social Democrats' housing spokesperson spent about a year and half…

We want to deal with it and we want to take this issue on. I have read and looked at the Social Democrats' policy proposals-----

-----on a State construction company, which is about social housing, I think they would acknowledge, and would take a minimum of two years to establish. We already have the Land Development Agency, which is doing social housing and affordable housing and will also be doing private housing and doing that mix. The Social Democrats want to create a new agency on top of that just to do social housing, to have direct labour, which I think will be very problematic and challenging in the construction labour market we have…

There is a lot of absence of feasibility. There is a real feasibility issue with its proposals. On the SSIA, we did an SSIA in the past but that will be another number of years before the funding comes on stream.

There is huge public money going into housing. There is €9 billion this year and there is multibillion-----

-----going into infrastructure. The issue is we do need private sector investment, which the Deputy's party has a huge problem with. It just hates the private sector.

The Social Democrats hate the private sector. They do not believe it has any role in housing.

That is another fundamental difference. The Department of Finance says we need about €20 billion a year to get to 50,000 to 60,000 houses per annum. We have a clear pathway to doing that. We need private sector investment to create additional supply. Does the Deputy accept that or does she not? Her spokesperson does not seem to accept it.

Again, the Deputy comes in with the usual soundbites and trot them out-----

-----and make assertions about the bona fides of people on this side of the House, which I think are unworthy. Everybody in this House wants to resolve the housing crisis. We have a clear view that it has to be a combination of public and private sector investment.

The Deputy did not respond to my positioning. She is opposed to private sector investment.

I think that is a real issue in terms of getting supply. I did not interrupt the Deputy. She and her party have a habit of continuing interrupting when we try to respond to their points. I have no issue with a debate in the House, but I am making valid points. I have read her party's housing construction policy. In my view, it is not going to add value in the next two to three years. It could not.

The Deputy has not explained how it would deal with the existing Land Development Agency, which we have now provided billions for in terms of doing the work that it has to do. It has a pipeline of about 11,000 to 12,000 houses. Her proposals are fairly weak, if I am honest, in terms of dealing with the thing

I am not blaming her for anything. I am simply saying what she is coming up with is not that effective or does not really have the capacity to solve the housing problem. There needs to be more scrutiny of what her party is coming up with.

Our military neutrality is defined as not being a member of a military alliance and we are not members of a military alliance.

We do not intend to be. We are not a member of NATO, fundamentally. The triple lock relates to our participation in peacekeeping missions. We want to continue the tradition of Irish participation in peacekeeping missions. It has been a very noble one. It is probably one of the defining qualities of Irish foreign policy. People accept our bona fides in the international field, whether it is military peacekeeping or in civilian peace monitoring, contributions to conflict resolution and participation in multilateral f…

It is because my party introduced the concept of neutrality during the Second World War that I have the self-confidence to deal with this and to be absolutely confident that this is not about ending military neutrality. I make that point more generally. We have evolved independent Irish foreign policy-----