Eoin O'Brien

And we actually need 15,000 to 17,000 new-build social homes just to meet the demand that's there.

So if you keep under-investing, if you keep missing targets, if you keep badly regulating, this crisis, which your party's created over the last decade, is going to get worse.

And the question I would ask you is, in your own constituency, Seamus, where there is not going to be any institutional investment...

in expensive apartments.

What are you going to say to the renters who you're telling today they're going to have to suck up increased rents when they're not going to get increased supply over the coming number of years?

This policy has failed for the last decade.

It's going to fail into the future.

And that is why we're going to see record levels of homelessness, record levels of rents and an undersupply of the crucial homes that we need social affordable and private properties.

David, let's be very clear.

Rents are not going to come down while Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are in office.

They're putting the interests of institutional investors and big developers over renters and the only consequence is going to be higher rents for most people and increased homelessness for those.

We are trying to ensure that we get an increased supply which will stabilise the rents.

Well, firstly, Sinn Féin has long argued for increased flexibility in our planning code to allow for freestanding residential extensions for family members, whether somebody looking to right-size or a family looking to provide accommodation for their adult children.

In fact, we tabled amendments to the Dublin City and South Dublin development plans back in 2018 to give effect to that, but it was blocked by government parties.

When John Cummins, the Minister of State responsible for this initiative, announced his intention February of last year,

He said that that's what this measure was for.

It was for family members, not for private rental stock.

And in fact, they debated him on RT radio and said we would work with him on that if that was his intention.

What has now transpired is something radically different.

And it does give me very grave cause for concern.