Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Given that I have only two minutes, I will be brief and to the point. The Minister and those on the Government benches can trumpet all the aspirational figures they want. The stark reality is these targets are not being met and will not be met. This plan is failing and will continue to fail. It is failing primarily because it is built on a foundation of sand that is the Government’s hard right-wing ideological belief that the market will provide, a blatant fallacy that time and time again has produced the same failed result, yet Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party remained wedded to it. It must be some political form of Stockholm syndrome.

At a recent meeting with Donegal County Council we were told that while they have a target of 878 housing units by 2026, their realistic output will leave them approximately 30% short of this figure. They are hamstrung by the inability to fund appropriate land purchases. The latest Housing for All quarterly report noted that in Donegal since its inception, AHBs have had no funding whatsoever approved. I raised the issue of the financial matrix that is constraining AHBs in rural counties such as Donegal with the Taoiseach in March this year.

Nothing has been done. Since the budget last week, I have been inundated with calls from across the constituency from those near the income thresholds for social housing asking were they going to be kicked off the list. Did the Government even consider this at all during its budget preparations? Were the Ministers hoping it would be missed and that they would get to skim another raft of people off the list and claim it as a policy victory? If they shorten the list, surely they are having success in providing housing. The Government has increased the thresholds for only five of 31 local authorities last month. There was not rhyme or reason as to how this decision was arrived at. The Government does not know the true scale of the crisis because it does not want to know. All the fancy infographics in the world will not change that. The reality is that if the Government increases the social welfare figures, it is going to throw people off the list. Is it going to change that? Maybe it should announce now that people will not be removed from the list. Unfortunately, I believe they will be and that will be a success as far as the Government is concerned.

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