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

This country is facing a housing disaster of epic proportions, with a shortage of homes that is exacerbating generational divides and inequality, affecting health outcomes and the education system and stifling job growth. Today, the Government is casting more money into yet another package of additional measures on housing which the Taoiseach says will deliver results but which represents the latest in a series of desperate efforts to kick some life into the Government's housing policy. It is yet another attempt to tweak the Housing for All policy which the Taoiseach must accept is failing. Indeed, it is a tacit acceptance that Housing for All is failing and has not delivered results, that the Government is out of its depth and lacks ambition, urgency and, crucially, any impact on the housing disaster. We have not seen the delivery and results that people require. Instead, the Government continues to throw good money after bad while nothing changes for those who are desperately seeking a home, confined to childhood bedrooms because they cannot afford to move out of their parents' homes or stuck paying exorbitant rents in tiny cramped bedsits. Since the indefensible lifting of the eviction ban, many more people are now facing the abyss of homelessness because they have been served an eviction notice and there are no contingency plans in place from the Government.

Among the tweaked measures announced today is a temporary waiver of development contributions. In effect, it is yet another unconditional subsidy for developers. I listened carefully to the Taoiseach's response to Deputy McDonald. He referred to people building their own homes but it is not limited to people building their own homes; presumably it will apply to all developers. The Taoiseach described it as socialising community cost, which is an extraordinary way to characterise what is an unconditional grant and subsidy to developers. Over-reliance on the private sector has simply failed, so why is the Government continuing to throw good money after bad in this way? Why is it not committing massive State investment in local authorities and approved housing bodies? Why is it not committing State investment in the delivery of social and affordable homes? Does it believe developers will pass on the benefit of this new subsidy to first-time buyers? Will the Government be requiring them to do so? Will a condition be placed on this subsidy? That is the sort of measure that should be introduced by the Government in this housing disaster. Today's package also included grants intended to tackle vacancy and dereliction but, again, this is tweaking. I presume the vacant housing plan launched in January has also failed and that is why these measures are being tweaked again.

What we are seeing is a series of piecemeal additions to the failed housing policy from this Government. Does the Taoiseach accept that the new package of measures amounts to no more than tweaking the edges of a plan that has no proven success and has certainly not delivered for the more than 11,700 people who are now in homelessness?

See this speech in context