A Cheann Comhairle-----

A Cheann Comhairle, I am taking issue with what has happened here today.

I have not been allowed to address this in any shape or form-----

-----and I have offered.

For the record of the House, I offered to intervene-----

----- and I have been refused.

Ar dtús báire, is mian liom a rá gur uafásach ar fad é an méid atá tar éis tarlú, ní hamháin in Stoneybatter ach i rith an deireadh seachtaine. Déanaim comhbhrón le clann Quham Babatunde a fhuair bás agus leis an duine a bhí gortaithe mar aon leis sin. Níl sé sásúil gan amhras in aon chor. Tá plean ag an Rialtas agus ag an Aire Dlí agus Cirt, an Teachta Jim O’Callaghan chun an méid gardaí atá ann a mhéadú agus a dhéanamh níos láidre, chomh maith le dlíthe eile a thabhairt isteach. Beidh níos mó gardaí ar na sráidea…

There is no laissez-faire . Níl sé sin fíor. We have a robust legal framework to deal with knife crime. As I said, in September we increased the maximum penalty. There is a proactive policing operation to seize knives. There has been an increase in the number of knives being seized each year and that proactivity will continue. Again, we have to support the Garda. We have to give more resources. There is good CCTV of the violent disorder in South Anne Street, for example, but our Garda force should be able to use fa…

The Opposition has a habit of making assertions that are not grounded in any facts. I challenge Deputy Bacik-----

It is telling a falsehood, yes. I challenge Deputy Bacik-----

-----to find any statement where I said I would end RPZs and replace them with nothing. That is what she just said. I challenge her to find that statement for me and present it because it is a deliberate distortion of what I said. The Housing Agency began a review of RPZs last year - not me, the Housing Agency. The expiry date is the end of this year. The Housing Commission says the same thing but Deputy Bacik now challenges me to go back to the Housing Commission. It is in the Housing Commission report about refer…

I did not interrupt the Deputy and I did not finish my statement but, again, the heckling starts because the Opposition does not like what it is hearing.

Is it possible to have a serious debate, which the people deserve, on housing without the name calling and attempts to politically undermine and distort what is being said? I do not think it is possible to have such a debate with the Opposition, given the Deputy's contribution just now and her misrepresentation of what I said publicly. I will say again that the last Government moved from a situation where we were doing approximately 20,000 houses in 2020 to more than 30,000 houses in 2022, 2023 and 2024. Some 130,0…

There are two types of targets. There is what we need-----

Does the Opposition not want this debate?

The people did not buy Deputy Ó Broin's stuff in the election. They just did not buy it.

The Deputy persuaded nobody.

The Deputy persuaded nobody with his codswallop of a set of proposals.

There is what we need, and we need 50,000 houses per year according to the ESRI.

The question then is how we get there. I will say again that the Department of Finance and everybody else says that we need approximately €20 billion in development funding for housing. At the moment, the State is spending €6 billion.