Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with an Teachta Mac Lochlainn.

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the opportunity to speak to the Government's new housing plan. I say "new" but, as we have heard, there is little new in it. It is called Housing for All but, as we know, this could not be further from the truth. The Minister's plan is just more of the status quo. He stated he recognises it is cheaper to buy a home than rent one in several cities and added that this is how broken the system is. He talks as though the system broke itself, and as though we have suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a housing crisis. He washes his hands of it and asks who did it. We are here because of the failed policies of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that have created the housing crisis, yet the Minister and his Government expect us to believe that the people who caused the crisis are somehow the same people we should entrust to fix it. Do they live in the real world at all?

It is clear from the plan there will be little, if any, increase in direct capital investment in social and affordable homes between now and 2025, over and above what was in the pipeline. This means rents and high prices will continue to increase and supply will continue to lag behind. If someone is paying €2,000 a month for a one-bedroom apartment, or cannot access a mortgage and fears he or she will never own a home, or has been ten years or more on a council waiting list, or is in his or her 30s and is living back with his or her parents, or sleeps in a homeless hostel, or had to emigrate because of the cost and lack of housing, there is no need to worry. The Minister is telling people there is no crisis and the market is not out of control.

What happening is out of control. If he does not acknowledge that, we are wasting our time and he is wasting his. Somehow, he expects us to believe that the people who brought us here will be the same people to fix the problem, with the same policies and ideology. He is wedded to his market-driven ideology. That is what has brought us here and it will not get us out of this situation.

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