Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have six minutes. I was working it out because, like the Taoiseach, I did not do honours maths. This is a very important document for the Minister, for those Deputies who support the Government and for the thousands of people who want this housing crisis to end. Something substantial happened in February 2020. We were told through the democratic mandate that things needed to change on housing. That is why we all had the responsibility to try to put together a Government that did that. Some people led that job of putting a Government together, while others did not. They will be judged on that as much as we will be judged by this plan.

I want to talk to people about how this plan will help them, but the difficulty is that all the debate so far has sought to refight the general election of 2020, pretending the plan prior to that election is the same as this current plan. It is not. The rhetoric from the Opposition that this Government believes the private sector should be the builder of the majority of housing is not true. We do not agree with that and it is wrong. They say this Government is out of touch and out of ideas. They are wrong; this document is packed with ideas. They say we do not live in the real world. Every day, the Minister, like all of us in our clinics, hears problems relating to the housing crisis. We are anything but out of touch with it. They say we do not understand it, that we have speculator buddies, that we are leaning into the market, that we have the same policies and the same ideas and that we are wedded to market-driven priorities. They are wrong. Why are they wrong? Because Housing for All specifically outlines how they are wrong.

Let us compare Rebuilding Ireland with the Housing for All option. Rebuilding Ireland was a €6 billion plan over six years. This is a €20 billion plan over five years. Rebuilding Ireland was very much focused on social housing. Housing for All delivers housing for all - cost rental, affordable purchase and social housing, because we need mixed income and well-planned estates everywhere. I and many Deputies represent constituencies where that was not done and it is a key deliverable in Housing for All. This Government has brought in cost rental legislation, something Rebuilding Ireland did not do. The Labour Party talks about cost rental over and over again, but it was in government for five years and there was no legislation on cost rental. None. It had its chance. We did it in the space of 12 months. The previous Government limited the role of the Land Development Agency, LDA, while this Government has expanded it because, as the Minister said, we want every tool in the box. The previous Government reduced Part V by 10%; this Government doubled the obligation on developers to 20%. The previous Government introduced co-housing; we abolished it. How can the Opposition say these are the same policies all over again? It is just not true.

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