The Housing Agency provides the platform for the review that the Government has acted on. We have acted. We have taken decisions. I am not hanging around here. I am not interested in Deputy McDonald's bluff and bluster because it will contribute nothing to housing supply in this country. That is the bottom line. I did listen to Deputy McDonald this morning and she said to me it was back of the envelope stuff.

What does Deputy McDonald say? She says Government wants to take the shackles off the big funds, which is a great sound bite. She says she has asked the Government to stop screwing things up. When asked about Sinn Féin's alternative plan, it is to enable the builders to just get out and build. What a fantastic plan. What a really detailed plan that is really going to get things going, is it not? Then, of course, she condemns the vultures and cuckoos but, meanwhile, Deputy Ó Broin will meet with them and will recogn…

She then finishes by saying, here is my solution. She says, "For the love of God, get the builders building. That is my plan."

I thank the Deputy very much for raising this issue. It is a very serious and shocking situation. The revelations on "RTÉ Investigates", in particular, must have been deeply traumatic for families with loved ones in nursing homes generally but particularly in the two nursing homes that were covered by "RTÉ Investigates". It is particularly concerning that the regulatory authority did not capture or unearth this, particularly in one nursing home, in terms of its reviews. HIQA, when it was established, came out of Qu…

Yes, the Government has made that clear. We will be doing that. It is in the programme for Government. There is a forthcoming national policy on adult safeguarding for the health and social care sector that will set out how existing protections will be strengthened. That will be brought to Government shortly-----

-----and that will commit to the development of adult safeguarding legislation for the sector. We have included the health (adult safeguarding) Bill in our current legislative programme to facilitate this. On a more broader sense, we are looking at a combination. I am trying to be realistic here and respond meaningfully to what the Deputy has articulated. I do not disagree with a lot of what she said. However, there will be a necessity for increased public sector provision, for continuing private sector provision a…

No, I do not. Just because you use what I would call exaggerated language does not make it true.

I repeat that the bottom line is that all existing tenants will not have their rents increased beyond 2%. No attempts by the Deputy to sow confusion will change that reality. The more fundamental point in his presentation is that he and his party do not believe in a role for the market.

I listened to Deputy Hearne, his party spokesperson, say this.

Deputy Hearne does not believe in a role for the market. He said this. That is his position.

He said it plenty of times. That is the bottom line.

He has undermined-----

Sorry, I did not interrupt once.

What is intriguing is-----

You have attacked and condemned institutional funds-----

Ah come on. I know your-----

Ah you can. Sure you make them up every day for God's sake.

Go on out of that. Are you the leader of the Social Democrats now?

The Deputy opposite has made assertions in his Leaders' Question and I am quite entitled to respond to them. The bottom line here is supply. There is nothing coming from him on supply. The Housing Commission recommended reform of the RPZ scheme. The Social Democrats welcomed the Housing Commission report at the time and attacked Government for the failure to respond to it. I remember it well in the Dáil. All of the Members did. The Minister then got the Housing Agency to do a review of the RPZs, which are coming to…

-----because of course we have not got rid of RPZs. If anything, as Threshold has stated, we have significantly increased protection for renters while at the same time, in a balanced measure, we have created policy certainty for investment because we desperately needed more supply in the rental market. We clearly do if we are to get to 50,000 per annum. That is the piece the Deputy does not address at all. He has never addressed it-----