-----when he has not protected existing tenants. He should correct the record.

The Minister has not give any protection to existing tenants.

They are all still as exposed to being evicted onto the streets in the same way they were before the Minister's new measures.

Yes.

I will withdraw that it was a lie; it was a mistruth.

I hope people at home can see the Minister's behaviour, which is being visited on them in the streets.

The Minister never acknowledges the human impact.

More than 7,000 notices to quit were issued during the first three months of this year, which is an increase of 51%. The Tánaiste's response to being challenged on the highest levels of evictions since the Famine was quite shocking and revealing in its lack of concern for the real-life trauma, stress and anxiety of thousands of households, many of them children, families and workers, who were evicted in the first three months of this year. The Government's new rental measures were brought in to benefit the vulture …

He did not even respond in terms of this being trauma and people's lives being thrown upside down - thousands of them. Yet, the Tánaiste says, "Oh well, we will see what we can do." Why will the Government not put a ban on evictions in place?

The Tánaiste says he cares. He says he has compassion. This is what is needed.

Does the Tánaiste accept the trauma?

I thank Deputy Cairns and my Social Democrats colleagues for bringing forward this Bill. It is not a simple area of legislation but our job as legislators is not to shy away from the difficult conversations and to respond to the difficult realities that citizens and people in this country are living through. This is a deeply emotional topic. As a father and a partner, I have experienced the pain of pregnancy loss. I have close friends who had to travel due to a fatal foetal abnormality. They had to put their child …

Home spins.

We are losing nurses, teachers and tradespeople because they cannot afford housing in this city and across the country. Our businesses and public services cannot get workers because of the rents. We are seeing the main supply is vulture fund apartments at €3,500 a month. Who can afford that? Not one affordable house for sale was built by the State in Dublin city last year. What is the Taoiseach doing to ensure workers can afford to live in our city and can afford the rents and house prices? It is a crisis that is t…

I raise the issue of the failure to regenerate social housing flat complexes. The Government is giving billions of euro away in tax breaks to wealthy investor funds, yet it has turned to our most disadvantaged communities living in substandard housing conditions in social housing flat complexes and told them it cannot fund their regeneration. Does the Minister have any sense of embarrassment or shame that after being in government for 15 years, Fine Gael has failed to address the housing conditions of the most vuln…

These are existing social homes.

The Minister of State spins a story that the Government has acted on the cost of living, but the truth is that the Government has stubbornly refused to do things within its power that could reduce the cost-of-living crisis for ordinary people. On the other hand, the Government gives away billions of euro in tax breaks to wealthy investor funds and those on the highest incomes. The Government refuses to freeze rents. Instead, it actually removed the paltry rent controls that were in place and is allowing the big lan…

I raise the issue of IRES real estate investment trust, REIT. A number of renters from different complexes it has have been in touch with me. It is deeply alarming that IRES REIT, which is Ireland's largest vulture landlord, owning over 4,000 properties, is refusing tenants permission to replace a tenant who leaves in flat-share situation. The remaining tenant has been told they must pay the full rent. One tenant who is in touch with me is going from paying €1,000 per month to having to pay the entire apartment's r…

Will the Taoiseach intervene and stop IRES REIT engaging in this exploitation?

Today's motion from Sinn Féin is welcome and we support it. It is timely given what has come out today about the Oliver Bond Street flats, which is absolutely disgraceful. I have been in Oliver Bond Street and have worked with colleagues who have done research and community work in those flats. I worked for many years as a community worker in the Dolphin House flats dealing with issues of mould and damp. One of the big motivations for me to get involved in politics was that people should have the basic necessity of…