Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The confidence motion triggered by the Labour Party today essentially proposes a very simple choice for us as Members of this House. On the one hand, Deputies are being asked to vote in favour of collapsing the Dáil, provoking a general election and going into government with the Labour Party to set to work on delivering the 1 million homes promised by the party's leader over the weekend. Based on the Labour Party's previous record in the housing portfolio, we are unlikely to see this happening.

The Labour Party is asking us to call an immediate halt to everything put in place by the Government, which is delivering housing throughout the country, and to start from scratch. It is asking us to cut initiatives like the help-to-buy scheme, which received 7,000 applications this January. Sinn Féin would remove this if in government. This would prevent young couples from securing a maximum of €30,000 to help them secure their very first home. No wonder there was a rush in January of 7,000 people. The Members opposite want us to cut initiatives like the first home scheme and others that help to promote a surge in mortgage market activity. In 2022, there were 52,634 mortgage drawdowns, valued at €14.1 billion. These are real figures, real facts.

On the other hand, we can vote to continue with Housing for All, the substantive Government housing policy and a tangible blueprint for delivery that produced just under 30,000 homes in 2022. They do exist, we have opened them and we see people living in them. Housing for All is a far more realistic pathway to get to where we need to be in terms of delivery than collapsing this Dáil, having an election and starting from scratch.

The Labour Party leader set out her party's ambition for change at her party's conference this weekend. It was an ambition with no substance or detail and one that nobody believed can be delivered on. The Labour Party has a very selective memory when it comes to its time in government, particularly between 2014 and 2016, when it held the housing portfolio. All this is wiped from memory. It is akin to an episode of "The Twilight Zone". Based on previous performances, the promise of the 1 million houses does not look so good.

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