Niall Collins

I suppose, give it context.

We've had a major shift in public policy in relation to the whole rental sector.

And that was on foot of a number of recommendations from the Housing Commission report, which we put into legislation.

And primarily what we've done is we've strengthened renters' rights, really enhanced them.

When I speak to people who are involved in letting property, when I speak to people who are involved in renting property, as I do every week in my weekly clinics, I understand the human impact.

I want to acknowledge that it is very traumatic when people receive a notification, a termination notice to quit from the property that they're renting.

But equally, government has to deal with both sides of the issue and with both sides of the problem.

And all of the criticism I received over the last six months when people came to meet me in relation to the changes which came in last March was from the landlord sector, in fact.

So we have strengthened tenants' rights and rightly so.

But the point...

So what does that tell you about the rules that you put in place, the rule change?

equally the data shows that the number of landlords has grown within the marketplace and equally the data shows that the number of tenancies has grown.

What we have to try and do and Rory has the luxury of being able to speak to one side of this debate but we have to speak and act on both sides of the debate.

We have to try and grow supply and what our policy is grounded in trying to do is to create

a clear and a certain environment for investors to come into Ireland to provide the private equity and the private finance to build housing.

Because the Department of Finance will tell us quite clearly, we need to build 60,000 houses per year.

We are putting in 9 billion euros per year of state funding, which is significant funding.

And in order to build the 60,000 houses, we need 20 billion euros in funding.

And that 11 billion has to come from the private sector.

And Rory never speaks.