Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is like Tommy Cooper long ago, it is a case of just like that. "Just like that, we will make it 20,000". The Minister says there will be 4,000 affordable and, just like that, Sinn Féin will say "We will make it 8,000". There is no substance behind it.

It is just empty rhetoric as far as I can see. The Sinn Féin approach to housing is to exploit the housing crisis to suit its electoral and political base. That is the fundamental objective there.

Whatever one's view are, Housing for All represents a very comprehensive approach to housing. The Secretary General of my Department chairs an implementation group comprising Secretaries General of the other key Departments involving key work streams from workforce planning right through to finance and securing State lands for the building of housing. There is now a very comprehensive delivery mechanism at the heart of Government to deliver on the Housing for All objectives. We now know that in the 12 months between October 2020 and this October we have had 31,000 commencements. That is the highest number of commencements in a decade. Thus, the policies we have announced are having an impact. House construction was hit by Covid at the beginning of the year with the lockdown up to April, and likewise with the previous lockdown in 2020. I argue the Government's policy in Housing for All is far more detailed and substantive-----

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