Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Housing was a real test for this Government and almost three years from the general election, it has failed and failed spectacularly. Its inability and continued failures are so bad that they are undermining our health and education systems and are undermining our businesses, while pushing another generation to emigrate. Affordability has gone through the roof. Today a three-bedroom house in Edgeworthstown will set someone back €1,500 a month. That is in Longford, a county that did not qualify for an affordable housing scheme. In County Westmeath, it is €1,800 in Athlone for a two-bed, €1,600 in Mullingar where a so-called affordable housing scheme listed properties more expensive than 75% of similar properties on the market. I could go on and on. I could go on with the ever-growing list of young buyers pleading for help to get a home; the principal with a woodwork teacher living in their box room; the renting grandparent under notice to quit moving into their adult children's home. Yet during this time there was a Minister who was borderline gaslighting the public with statements that there was no housing crisis, that the plan is building momentum and that people just do not feel it yet as if it is somehow their problem and not the problem of failed policies. All the photo opportunities and glossy brochures produced by the Minister will not deflect from the cold hard fact that he is failing miserably. If he picks up a Goodbody Stockbrokers report or an ESRI report, it will show that commencements are down, planning applications are down and all the while there is a capital underspend. Is it any wonder that so many people across the country have never been more pessimistic about owning a home? The longer Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are in government, the worse this housing crisis is going to get.

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