Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

No doubt the Taoiseach hoped the Easter break would give him a bit of respite from the rage and despair people are feeling concerning the cruel and stupid decision his Government made to lift the eviction ban. This issue is not going to go away for thousands and thousands of families and individuals.

They are facing notices to quit, they are facing eviction and they have nowhere to go. No social housing is available for them. There is no affordable rental available for them. There is no affordable purchase available for the vast majority of them.

At the time, the Taoiseach justified this cruel decision and trumpeted the fact that during the period of the ban there had been a dramatic increase in the delivery of social housing at the end of 2022. Now, however, we have the facts and the facts do not suggest that the Government used the period of the eviction ban to improve things in any significant way. The facts show an absolute abject failure on the part of the Government to deliver even on its own targets of social housing or on affordable housing. The Government is 1,500 short of its own target on social housing and 3,000 short on its target for affordable housing.

The Government then continues to recycle the spin. We need to call the Taoiseach out on this. He said that "we" built 30,000 houses last year - "we" - and that "we" built 7,500 council houses. No you did not. If one looks at the actual local authority delivery, at what the State built, it built 2,800. In Dublin, which is the epicentre of the housing crisis, it built 546. In Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown last year it built two council houses. That was two council houses when 5,000 households are on the list, and nationally there are 120,000-----

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