Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach is absolutely right - the time to play with words is over and the time is now to build more houses. He is also right about supply being the issue. However, he is wrong to say the Opposition does not come up with constructive ideas and solutions. We in the Labour Party put forward a clear proposal in our alternative budget this year for an additional spend of €1.5 billion precisely to deal with that issue of supply and to build homes on public land.

Here are two other constructive solutions. First, let us see the scaling up of the tenantin situscheme about which we have spoken and which I have raised before in the House to ensure that local authorities are given consistent rules to apply to prevent homelessness after the winter eviction ban has ceased. Second, let us see the Government spending the money allocated in the housing budget. Members have seen it reported in the Sunday Independentthat €476 million of the Government's housing budget for the first nine months of this year went unspent, including a €228 million underspend on council housing. That is not the level of expenditure one would expect or should see during what President Higgins has rightly described as a housing disaster. We will be constructive, we have welcomed the winter eviction ban and we will welcome constructive reforms to the planning legislation, but we also want to see urgent action from the Government in delivering the supply of new housing.

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