Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is just not good enough to give a litany or list of measures seeking to explain the housing crisis away. It is not good enough when we see nearly 13,000 people in emergency accommodation, almost 4,000 of whom are children, and when we see more than two thirds of people aged between 25 and 29 still living in their childhood bedrooms at home with their parents, tens of thousands who are whittling away their savings on rent when they want to be able to afford and buy a home of their own. Those are the figures that matter.

I did not hear any reassurance from the Taoiseach that the LDA would be adequately capitalised. Indeed, he admitted that it got off to a slow start. There is no doubt about that. When it was first mooted, the Land Development Agency was expected to deliver 150,000 homes in 20 years. That was the announcement. Now that forecast has been reduced to just 10,000 homes in five years. That is the problem with this Government on housing. It keeps moving the goalposts and it refuses, or neglects, to resource adequately the very vehicles that are required to deliver the housing necessary to fix and address this chronic housing shortage. Who is going to take responsibility for capitalising the Land Development Agency? How much money will be given to it? When will we see the focus shift from glossy announcements of new initiatives to actual delivery of real homes for people who so badly need them?

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