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

First, I have said repeatedly in this House - and I stand by my statement - that, in my view, housing is the single most important social issue facing our country at this moment in time and access to housing is fundamental to our security, our stability, our health and our progress as a nation. I do not know the individual circumstances in relation to Graham King and his family. I do not know the full background of the housing that they might have had prior to this, but it is not acceptable that a family would be living in a tent.

Equally, though, we need sustained action on housing. The Housing for All plan is the only substantive plan I have seen over the past 12 months - it is only a year old - that deals across the board with a whole range of issues to do with housing. That has been backed up by significant legislation passed in this House, which at times the Deputy's party opposed in vociferously arguing against the retention of the help-to-buy scheme, the first home scheme or affordable housing. Eventually, when it came to the vote, Sinn Féin voted some of that through.

I see no alternatives to the key measures we are taking on social homes. We will have a record number this year in terms of social houses compared with recent times. The key issue for us will be to deliver more houses than the approximately 25,000 that will be delivered this year, which is on target with what we have identified. The Government has been in office for just over two years, we have had two lockdowns as a result of Covid and we have had an exponential increase in building costs, the cost of materials and so on because of the war in Ukraine and the bounceback. Nonetheless, we still have a situation where we have the highest housing delivery now since 2008, the highest commencements on record, the highest planning permissions since 2007, the highest number of first-time buyers since 2007 and the highest number of home buyers since 2008.

However, that is not enough. We are having an impact, but we need to build more than those 25,000 houses. We need to get to 35,000 houses being built, and this means creating the pipeline that can sustain this right through the next number of years. This is something the Government is very focused on. This year, in respect of social houses, builds and so on, between approved social housing bodies and local authorities, we will have thousands of new social homes built. This is the reality. It will be much higher than previous years because a lot work has gone into this in previous years, which has led us to the stage where we are now building far more social houses for a long, long time. This will have an impact, but it does take time. The Housing for All policy is more than a year old.

To make one final point in this regard, the Deputy mentioned her own constituency. For her own reasons, she has decided to oppose a proposal in Clonliffe. I think more than 1,000 homes were to be provided in the context of that planning application. The Deputy may have a good reason. I acknowledge that everybody can find good reason. Equally, however, if we are all possessed with the urgency of this issue today, and the crisis in housing, do we really have the luxury of opposing projects of this kind?. The Housing for All strategy refers to 33,000 houses, but I think we have to get to 35,000 homes being built annually. Collectively, we must get to 35,000 houses being built per annum and I would just query that.

On the eviction decision, if we can get this legislation through the House, it can take effect from the beginning of November. Again, we are in extremisconcerning the situation with the war in Ukraine. More than 50,000 Ukrainians have now come into the country, and far more will access the international protection accommodation service, IPAS. We also have the emergency housing situation. We are, therefore, in unprecedented circumstances. In that context, the Government's decision this morning on the eviction ban is positive and necessary.

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