Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The State withdrew from it for a long time. The problem is that even when the Government has re-entered, it has not been up to scale. Read what the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, said and stop dodging the question. It said to double capital investment in housing. Sinn Féin has been saying it year after year. The Government has remained tone deaf to that message. As a result of that, the Government has caused a housing crisis through its policies. It did not happen by a national disaster. It was a result of housing policies that the Minister and the Government have pursued. Taking the politics out of it, the ESRI is saying that the capacity is there to double investment in housing from €2 billion to €4 billion. That should be done in budget 2022 and that would start to end the housing crisis.

The Minister might say he is going all in on investment funds and on developers and we will put this resource into social and affordable housing. It is not cutting it, however, which the ESRI is saying. The Government, therefore, needs to recognise that its policies have failed. It needs to be humble enough to recognise that it has deepened the housing crisis. It now needs to stop repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Change direction, double investment in housing and start to end this crisis for so many families.

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