Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

This is the final opportunity I will have to ask the Tánaiste questions before the Dáil rises for the recess. I want to ask the Tánaiste about housing. The Dáil may be going into recess for two months but there will be no break in the number of evictions, no break in the number of notices to quit that are sent, and no break in the number of men, women and children who are made homeless every day. There will be no break in the stress for those people currently wondering how they can continue to keep the roof over their head and pay record rents in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. There will be no break for the hundreds of thousands of young people who are wondering when they will be able to afford to move out of their parents' homes. There will be no break from the fear, anxiety and trauma that comes from being affected in this housing crisis.

People are living with constant dread and fear because of the Government's failure on housing. There are record rents, record house prices, record levels of homelessness and record levels of young adults living in their childhood bedrooms. It does not have to be like this. There are things the Government could be doing differently. The very first thing it could do is reinstate the no-fault eviction ban and at least try to ensure that no-one else becomes homeless this year. Second, the Government could be doing so much more to tackle the enormous levels of vacancy. In every single town, village and city across the country there are boarded up and vacant homes. To feign an attempt to address this the Government introduced a vacancy tax this year, but set it to just 0.1% of the value of a home. It is pathetic. The Government could immediately increase that too.

Then there is the issue of delivering affordable homes. The Government only managed 323 affordable homes out of a target of 4,000 last year. As the Tánaiste is aware, affordable homes are key to addressing this crisis. We know it can be done. The Ó Cualann housing alliance has an excellent track record. It has not been given the support it needs to really ramp up supply.

I have three questions for the Tánaiste. In the Housing For All progress report this week, there was no mention of how many affordable homes have been delivered this year. Why not? What is the figure? The Government failed to spend €1 billion of the housing budget last year. Has it managed to spend this year's budget? Homelessness has relentlessly increased for 16 of the past 17 months. Will the Tánaiste reinstate the no-fault eviction ban?

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