Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Social Democrats for bringing this forward.

I often get up here and say that I will not repeat what has already been said and then I repeat exactly what was said, but in this case it is impossible not to because it takes about 30 seconds to point out that the Government will hand €450 million to developers. There is no affordability win. All we are doing is failing to use that money to deliver housing for people. It is an abject, absolute failure. It does not make any sense whatsoever. We have already heard about two-bedroom apartments potentially costing €390,000 and a three-bedroom apartment costing €450,000. It is hard to make sense of these figures.

Deputy Munster talked about the affordable housing targets and Louth's derisory figure of 226. It is straightforward to say that this will not cut the mustard. We all have people coming into our constituency offices, I am about to enter into my single transferable speech on housing, with whom we talk about the amount of money they are paying in rent. In some cases, it is €1,400 or €1,600 and more, which they cannot afford. I do not know how they get the money together in any way, shape or form.

Deputy Ó Laoghaire has spoken many times, as I have, about the income thresholds for getting on the housing list and the means by which they are assessed over the entire year, which throws up multiple anomalies. People have lost out on housing having been on housing lists for eight or nine years plus. This is absolutely ridiculous and scandalous. They subsequently apply, get back on to the housing list, and are in receipt of HAP, once again. It is just an abject failure. I have raised it a number of times in the Chamber the fact that people in receipt of HAP have been told that there are no payment plans. That even includes people who end up in hospital or experience unforeseen circumstances. What are we going to do? We will add them to the homeless list.

We have a plan that is not a plan in respect of delivery across the board. This certainly is not any sort of plan that will deliver for people. We need at least 4,000 affordable houses a year. Beyond that, we must deliver affordable cost rental and affordable mortgages but we really must deliver social housing. We have seen the failures of government after government. This is certainly not going to make anything better. We need to go back to the planning table. It is time to listen to the Opposition.

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