Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As usual, the Government is full of bluster on this issue, but the time for excuses is over. The blame lies squarely on the Government's shoulders, without going back to Fianna Fáil. We could go back to the last century if we wanted to do so. As Joyce Fegan and Elaine Loughlin have reported in the Irish Examiner, while the Government has promised to deliver 3,800 new social houses in 2018, local authorities are set to miss that target by almost 620. It is happening all the time. I attended a meeting of the housing committee yesterday and we had all of the CEOs in. We could talk forever. If talk could build houses, the Government would be great, but it is not building houses. Historically, Fine Gael never built them either. It is not interested in ordinary people. It is only interested in the people who have a line of daffodils up the lane, big houses and mansions, not ordinary people.

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