Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

A projected budget surplus of up to €16 billion has been announced for next year, which is in addition to the €8 billion budget surplus for last year and the €10 billion for this year. The Government has all this money to solve the housing disaster but somehow its problem is spending it. We know the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has failed to spend more than €1 billion of his budget. He tried to bury more bad news yesterday. The targets for social and affordable housing were missed yet again in the past year. The Government missed its affordable housing targets by nearly 60% with just 1,757 affordable homes delivered in 2022, which is out of a paltry target of 4,100 houses. To make matters even worse, that 1,757 figure has been messaged to include homes that are not affordable.

This is gross incompetence and epic failure by any standard. Under this Government people on average incomes have no hope of buying or even renting their own home.

When he became Taoiseach, the Taoiseach said he wanted to take ownership of housing. Has he already done that? If not, could he tell the House when he intends to do so?

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