Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have to say, "Dear, oh dear, oh dear, what has got into the Minister for housing?" Not only was his short intervention ill-tempered but he did not even have the courtesy to remain and listen to Opposition spokespeople. Not only is he unwilling to debate us on the airwaves, it appears he is not even willing to sit and listen to what we have to say in the Chamber. People can make up their own minds about that.

What I would have liked the Minister to hear is the following: there is a dishonesty at the very heart of yesterday's budget announcement with respect to housing. It is a deep dishonesty that was repeated in his contribution earlier. He can talk all he wants about 300,000 houses over ten years or €20 billion of expenditure from now to 2025 but what most people want to know is how much extra money is going to be invested next year in the direct delivery of social and genuinely affordable homes. The answer to this question is not what the Minister said; it is €309 million. The total extra capital spend in yesterday's budget in the Vote for the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage for the direct delivery of social and genuinely affordable homes to rent or buy is €300 million. This is one of the lowest increases in direct capital spend we have seen in the past five years. Because it is so low it means the actual number of social and genuinely affordable homes to be delivered next year is far fewer than the Minister claimed in his housing plan some weeks ago.

On social housing, the budget book makes clear that only 9,200 real social homes will be built and bought by local authorities and delivered by approved housing bodies next year. This is 1,000 fewer than was promised by Fine Gael in the original version of the NDP. It promised 10,300. It has now reduced this to 9,200. The Minister's claim in the budget book to be spending an extra €400 million to €500 million on social housing simply is not true. When we get the replies to parliamentary questions back from the Department we will be able to prove it.

On the other side, when we add up HAP, RAS and long-term leasing, we will have three times the number of social housing tenancies, which are short-term, insecure and incredibly expensive for the taxpayer. Interestingly, this is exactly the same ratio, 2:1, as was contained in Rebuilding Ireland. Nothing has changed now that Deputy Darragh O'Brien is in control.

Let us look at affordable housing. Fianna Fáil did not introduce cost rental. In fact, Deputy Alan Kelly introduced it in his social housing strategy in 2014 and Fine Gael supported it in the previous Government. As with both of those former Ministers, this Minister is not matching his promises with his funding commitments. In fact, the amount being spent directly by the Government next year on affordable cost-rental and affordable purchase through approved housing bodies and local authorities will be an embarrassingly low €130 million. This will deliver 1,250 genuinely affordable homes.

We have the deepest affordable housing crisis in the history of the modern State. All the Minister can come up with is 1,250 homes. Let us compare this to the enormous handouts to private developers. The help-to-buy scheme is providing €175 million, the shared equity loan is providing €119 million, croí cónaithe is providing €50 million and the infrastructure housing activation fund is providing €32 million. There is three times the expenditure to give private developers top-ups on unaffordable homes compared to the money given directly to local authorities to deliver genuinely affordable homes. This is why the affordable housing crisis will get worse under the Minister and Fianna Fáil and not better.

What about renters? There is not a single measure in the budget for renters. Nobody asked the Minister what he did last week or what he will do next week. What people want to know is what is in the budget for renters today. It is zero. The only mention of the private rental sector is the extension of a tax relief for landlords. This is why renters are so angry.

Another key measure, the zoned land tax, will not be introduced for three years. It is 3% lower than the currently inefficient vacant sites levy and way lower than the actual cost of land value inflation. It is a joke. It is not just a damp squib or a lame duck; it is an absolute farce. The Minister has also cut State regeneration funding by €23 million. Some of the worst public housing in the State will get less funding for regeneration next year than this year thanks to him.

The €20 million increase for the mica and pyrite defects scheme is an insult to those families. What is even worse is that there is nothing for the families living with Celtic tiger defects. If Deputy Alan Kelly was bad, Deputy Simon Coveney was worse and Eoghan Murphy was even worse, Deputy Darragh O'Brien is proving to be the most dishonest and disastrous housing Minister in the history of the State. This is why I will stand over my contention that yesterday's budget was the worst housing budget since 2016.

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