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

We all await those figures for quarter 4 with great interest. I agree with the Minister and I have raised many times the need to ramp up the tenant in situscheme, and I think there is cross-party agreement on that. However, listening to the figures that the Minister is giving and looking at the Housing Commission report today, it is hard to see the value of the targets being set by the Government at this stage, particularly when we are so unclear about whether they are being met. The Minister gave a figure of 9,000 under construction at the end of quarter 3 of 2022 but the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is estimating only 6,500 social homes were completed in 2022, some 2,500 fewer than the initial target.

Speaking of targets, as recently as ten days ago, the Taoiseach seemed to announce arbitrarily an increase in the Housing for All target, from the average that the Minister has given of 33,000 homes to 40,000. I know our housing spokesperson, Senator Rebecca Moynihan, at the time said it seemed the Taoiseach was plucking figures from the air in terms of targets. Can the Minister say for sure that these targets are valid, particularly as the Housing Commission has now said Ireland needs between 42,000 and 60,000 new homes per year? How can we rely on targets?

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