Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As the housing crisis deepens, we are all aware Fine Gael has been in government for 12 years and has been propped up by the Minister and Fianna Fáil for seven of those. In every one of those years, the housing crisis has worsened. Under the Government, house prices have increased by €70,000 and rents have increased by just under €4,000 per year on average. Homelessness has increased by 47%. In July, we reached a grim record figure of 12,847 people homeless, which is the highest ever. Some 12,847 men, women and children are homeless in this State in 2023. The Minister's record is beyond shameful.

Ministers regularly come out rattling off figures and statistics to try to gaslight the public into thinking they are actually doing something to solve the crisis but the numbers on the ground of people homeless and the massive increase in the cost of housing tell the real story. In my town of Drogheda, I have constituents who have spent 12 years on a housing list. It is soul-destroying for those people who are locked out of housing, yet the State is spending obscene amounts on sticking plasters such as HAP rather than funding the building of social and affordable homes. A total of 1,401 social homes were built by June, but the target was 9,100. The Minister has consistently failed to meet his targets and, as a result, children are spending their entire childhoods living in unsuitable accommodation, including hotels, hubs, overcrowded multigenerational families homes or unsuitable and unstable rentals. It is fair to say this Government's lack of workable housing solutions has inflicted nothing but generational misery on Irish society.

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