I do not agree with Deputy McDonald's assertions once again. No matter what any State agency does, or what anybody out there does, she will blame the Government. That is her standard practice. The Government is at fault for everything. Her latest assertion is that the Government must now run RTÉ. Just think about that and reflect on it. Is that what Deputy McDonald is actually saying, that politicians should go in there and run the national public service broadcaster? That is what she is saying.

I know she has to do this for electoral reasons and politics and to play the game but there is a serious undercurrent here, and coming from the Sinn Féin Party it will create its own challenges in good time and I want to put that on the record. I would say what has happened is unacceptable. The Minister has had a meeting, or will meet, the director general today. Deputy McDonald made a comment on the legislation. The Minister brought it before Cabinet today. Again, she implied that he was at fault for the delay in …

The Oireachtas pre-legislative scrutiny took a considerable length of time. Deputy McDonald's party and members were involved in this legitimately. Please do not come in here, after taking time on pre-legislative scrutiny, and then say the Minister is acting in slow motion.

That is the kind of dishonesty that characterises every one of her presentations here in recent times on Leaders' Questions. She does not really care about the truth any more. Whenever something breaks out, let us have a go at the Government and let us blame the Government and that is it. It is a simple formula and that is what Deputy McDonald is about. I do not believe the current management is laissez-faire . I do think it wants to get to grips with this. That is my assessment, and I think the board does as well.…

-----in terms of his role. There may be others. What this speaks to is a lack of structure in terms of how people are recruited, designated and treated from a human resource point of view in RTÉ. The wider issue that the bonnet needs to be lifted on is whether there is consistency across the organisation in respect of the treatment of people and the treatment of employees of the company. There is a real disparity in terms of how some are treated compared to how others have been treated, and this is a problem for RT…

I fully agree with that, and that is what the Minister is doing. It is going to the C and AG, and it will be before the public accounts committee. It took some time to get through the Houses, but the Minister is doing that. It took some time because of you guys, rightly. I have no issue with pre-legislative scrutiny, but you cannot blame the Minister for delays with pre-legislative scrutiny. They cannot do that. They cannot get away with that kind of stuff and I am not going to let them get away with it. An rud is …

The Minister has brought through the legislation that will bring RTÉ under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General, which is a stronger regime of public accountability for RTÉ than has been the case hitherto. There has always been sensitivity in the relationship between the political system and RTÉ. In the midst of all the turmoil and noise, we need to keep an eye on that too. It will go before the public accounts committee. Deputy Carthy can laugh away because it would be of no concern to him.

If he could run RTÉ, he would run it in the interests of his party. That is how you guys operate and would operate.

The point I am making is that the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, is meeting with the director general and the chairman of RTÉ today. I believe they are making a sincere effort to try to get this reorganised. There has been some progress made but what has happened is unacceptable. What is more important is that there is consistency across the board in RTÉ in terms of how people are treated from a human resources point of view and that rights and conditions apply to everybody in RTÉ and not just some.

I again do not accept the full presentation because the Deputy is being somewhat disingenuous. She attacked the rent reforms. By the way the whole reform of that was advised in the first instance by the Housing Commission and she urged us to implement its recommendations. That is the first point, and it did need to be reformed and the reforms have added protection for tenants. One of the outcomes of that is, in terms of those who are objecting to the six years, that some landlords opted out but there is always a ch…

-----who have actually entered the market. As some people exit the market, more enter the market and it needed to be sorted and to be solidified as well, and the Deputy knows that. Her objection was she tried to portray it as an incentive to developers and landlords but it is the protection elements of the reforms that have caused some smaller landlords, perhaps, to exit. She cannot have it both ways.

No, I am sorry; the Deputy cannot have it both ways. We need to have a settled landscape out to the next decade or so in terms of the investment side of the equation to get more in. The bottom line is 36,000 homes were delivered last year, which is the highest since records began and up 20% on 2024. A total of 38,000 new dwellings were completed in the 12 months ending quarter 1 of 2026, which is an increase of 26 year on year. Since 2020, about 177,000 units have been built. Planning momentum is very strong, with …

-----and cost rental, the increases are happening across the board.

People enter the market and people leave the market continuously, and have done so. The Deputy knows that. It is just a fact. The bottom line is that she cannot spin away either and pretend that nothing is happening in terms of housing supply.

Over 9,000 social houses were built last year. Those were direct builds that the State funded. Housing is the number one issue facing the people of the country. Our population has grown exponentially, and if we dig deep under the demographics and the population figures, we can see the impact on the pressures on the housing situation because of the different parts of that demographics story. I can deal with that at a later time. We need to increase housing supply, and this is what the Government is focused on in a w…

It is now 40% in 2026.

We need it to happen faster-----

First, I extend my deepest sympathies to the family of Mr. Sakila. The full circumstances of what happened there need to be examined and investigated fully and thoroughly. I understand that Fiosrú has been notified and is involved in that as an independent statutory body. The situation is deeply concerning and very concerning to many people who witnessed it. I just want to make that point but obviously we cannot pre-empt the outcome of any investigation. In respect of the Israeli action against the Sumud flotilla i…

I disagree with the Deputy's fundamental premise on this issue. People know my voice on Gaza and the Middle East. They know it in the European Union, both on the Foreign Affairs Council, when I was Minister for Foreign Affairs, and back in 2007, when I went to Gaza. I do not really need lectures from the Deputy in terms of my sincerity about Gaza.

I appreciate what those on the flotilla are doing. If we passed the occupied territories Bill in the morning, there would still be a flotilla, and I understand why there would be. Earlier, I listed all that has been done. If we look back at the debate before we did the recognition and before we intervened in the South African case, all the Deputies opposite were saying, "If only you would do this, it will achieve a fundamental change in Israel's position". We did all of that. We did so for the right reasons, becaus…