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

I am sure we will use them up; do not worry. I thank Deputy Cian O'Callaghan and his colleagues in the Social Democrats, not only for tabling this Private Members' motion, which we are more than happy to support, but also for giving us the opportunity to have this important debate.

Moments ago, the Minister told us that he and his colleagues would move heaven and earth to tackle this crisis. Well, there actually two things that he will not do. He will not keep the promises about affordable housing that he made in the general election campaign and he will not meet any of his own targets for the delivery of affordable housing during his tenure as Minister. Let us cast our minds back to the general election of 2020. The Fianna Fáil promise on affordable housing during that campaign was for 10,000 genuinely affordable homes to be delivered using the Ó Cualann model every year for five years. This was to be 50,000 homes at prices below €250,000 each. Only a matter of weeks in government and that promise was quietly shelved and quietly forgotten about. Darragh O'Brien also inherited the former Minister, Eoghan Murphy's, much trumpeted serviced sites fund. There was a promise in budget 2019 to deliver 6,000 affordable homes with €300 million over that period. In fact, so great was this idea that the Minister as the Opposition spokesperson under the confidence and supply arrangement claimed that it was his idea and that he negotiated it. When Eoghan Murphy was the Minister for two of those three years ,how many of those homes were delivered? It was zero. In the first year that Deputy O'Brien was Minister, not a single affordable home was delivered under that scheme. Three years into the scheme, more money is unspent. In budget 2021, the Minister promised the cost-rental equity loan. He said there was enough funding for 750 cost-rental units that year. How many were provided in the first of his own schemes in the first full year in government? It was only 75. While 750 was never enough in the first place, to only deliver a paltry 75 units speaks volumes. Then, after much delay the Minister finally got around to publishing his housing plan. Of course, he never had any policy when he was in opposition. He did not even have it in his first year or more in government. When he eventually published a housing plan, he promised 4,000-plus affordable homes in 2022 and 5,000 affordable homes this year. How many of those homes have been delivered? He has trotted out an awful lot of figures but he did not actually talk about the one issue that he directly controls and that is crucially important, which his own direct delivery of affordable homes. Last year, of the 4,000 promised affordable homes, just over 1,000 were delivered comprising 323 affordable purchase homes and 684 cost-rental. This was only one quarter of what the Minister had promised.

This year, apparently, the Government's housing plan is working wonderfully and they are moving heaven and earth and doing everything in their power. How many of the 5,000 affordable homes have been delivered this year? The problem is that we do not know because the Minister will not tell us. He is meant to produce a report detailing social and affordable housing delivery at the end of each quarter. He has held a press conference at the end of each quarter. He has published very glossy documents. What is the figure that is missing from those documents? It is the one figure the Minister is responsible for, which is the direct delivery of affordable homes.

The Minister knows that his Department got the verified figures for social affordable housing after quarter 1 and he chose not to publish them because they were so low. When he got the verified figures for quarter 2, the big question is why he has he not published them. He is looking at his phone. Maybe he is looking on his phone at the minute to see if he has an email from his officials to say he can release the figures and that they are in the Department waiting to be published. We want to know why there is a delay. I do not know but perhaps the cynic in me thinks the Minister is not publishing the figures because they are so way off target. If I am wrong, he can feel free to heckle me, give me the correct figures and put the information on the record.

We then have this deeply dishonest claim that €4 billion in public money is being spent every year on social and affordable housing. It is not and the Minister knows this. We are aware this was the promise in 2022 and 2023 but he underspent and the LDA underspent, and because of his departmental and governmental failures, the approved housing bodies have not been able to spend the money. The Minister should really come clean and tell us how much is actually being spent not what he is promising.

Of course, when confronted with all of this failure - and it is a catalogue of failure - the Minister responds in typical fashion. He extols the virtues of the so-called help-to-buy scheme, which pushes up house prices and 40% of the money went to people who did not need it. I am not criticising them; I am criticising the design of the scheme. More than €200 million in public money went to assist people to buy homes when they already had a full deposit and a mortgage. That money could have significantly reduced the number of people in emergency accommodation currently. The Minister also extols the virtues of the shared equity loan. Apart from the fact that it pushes up house prices and saddles working people with ever greater levels of debt, we were told that 1,800 mortgages would be assisted last year. There were none. The target for this year is 1,800 to 2,000. The scheme is going to miss its targets. It is a badly designed scheme that does not even work. The reality is that even when we consider the Croí Cónaithe towns scheme, it is badly designed, it is delayed and it will have virtually no impact on tackling vacancy and dereliction. The Minister is smiling but our proposal to bring 4,000 vacant and derelict units back into use, including allowing people to have access to a grant, is far better than his paltry, unsuccessful and badly designed scheme.

Where are we at after three years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government and Deputy O'Brien as the Minister? House prices have never been higher because of his failure to deliver social and affordable homes and because of the Government's inflationary policies. This is why it is time for change. This is why I enthusiastically support the motion. We will outline again in great detail in our alternative housing budget how 20,000 public homes a year can be delivered, including 8,000 affordable homes in the first year but absolutely moving to 10,000-plus in years two, three and four. Until the Government accepts that this is the scale of ambition required, and until it invests the funds, cuts back the red tape and empowers our local authorities and AHBs to deliver the homes that it promised in the general election campaign in 2020, this crisis is going to get worse. This is why I support the motion. I support time for change. The sooner Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are out of power, the better for all those in acute housing need.

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