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

If ever there was a lesson in Orwellian doublespeak and dishonesty, we have just heard it from the Tánaiste. The key problem is that almost every single policy this Government has introduced has pushed up house prices and rents. The help to buy scheme pushed up house prices. Rent pressure zones, RPZs, pushed up rental costs. The shared equity loan scheme, which we will debate later today, has been criticised by everybody, including councillors in the Tánaiste's own party. Sinn Féin is the only large party on the floor of the Dáil that year after year has said that 8,000 affordable homes should be built annually. To answer the Tánaiste's question directly, half of those, 4,000 homes, would be affordable purchase for aspiring homeowners. How many affordable homes has this Government delivered for renters and purchasers in ten years? Not a single one through any Government scheme. It is time, therefore, for the Tánaiste to wake up and realise the extent of the Government’s failures. It is time to own up to the misery and heartache being caused for tens of thousands of families, correct the error of these ways and invest in the homes that working people desperately need and rightly deserve.

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