Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Darragh O'Brien took on the role of Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage just over two years ago and on the back of a global pandemic. The pandemic resulted in stalls in construction and the Minister has since had to deal with the triple crises of energy, cost of living and inflation. This is in addition to the war, which has affected the supply of material and labour as well as increasing the number of people seeking asylum.

These are all outside the Minister's control.

I acknowledge that planning permissions are down by 41%, the level of housing staff is down and homelessness figures are the highest we have seen. These are all relevant facts. However, another relevant fact is that the overall housing delivery target of 24,600 new homes will be exceeded this year. The first affordable purchase homes in more than a decade will be delivered this year. Hundreds of cost rental tenants are now in safe and secure long-term rental homes, which did not exist a little over a year ago. The biggest overhaul of planning legislation in 20 years is being brought to Cabinet today.

Cancel culture is rife. I must point out that overhauling an entire Government is not the solution. What then? We scramble to replace a housing Minister or have a new Government. How will this help the people? How will this help solve the homeless problems? Starting from scratch involves going back to square one and being unwilling to wait any time for targets and goals to come to fruition. Goals take time and yes, while you can cherry pick low-hanging fruit for quick gains, long-term plans depend on everything falling into place. Unfortunately, the war has resulted in increased costs and increased migration, which have hindered development and put pressure on our housing system. The Minister has consistently acknowledged that not everyone is feeling this progress yet and that it will take time but progress is being made. The motion is simply opposition for opposition's sake.

The Opposition is saying that our housing system is broken thanks to successive failures of Government policy and they have reached breaking point on the Government's failure to deliver but it has not offered any solution. It has not raised any innovative ideas in debate in the Dáil. What we need are innovative ideas. We need to put our heads together. The Opposition is saying that we need a housing model that delivers housing from the State to meet the needs of people. How would this look? What do they propose? If they really wanted to help the people and not further their own agenda, they would put forward ideas.

Our political alliance does not come first; the people of Ireland must come first. I must hand it to the Minister because he is doing a good job and is open to hearing any innovative ideas such as when I proposed modular homes in the Dáil a couple of weeks ago. We have had numerous discussions on this and have since set a date for him to visit Dundalk and meet the developer. We need to stop playing political football and put our heads together to resolve homelessness and come up with innovative housing initiatives.

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