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

The Taoiseach has listed a multitude of schemes but we see a yawning gap in the delivery of homes as a result of those schemes, which is the issue. It is an issue for everyone, including for renters and, as the Taoiseach has acknowledged, for those who wish to buy homes too. We see the report today that single first-time buyers must earn at least €67,000 a year in order to even qualify for a mortgage. We see single people locked out of homeownership and we see renters in crisis, yet the Government is failing to spend the full budget for housing. Last year, it failed to spend 25% of the social and affordable housing budget. The total spend on housing amounted to €1 billion less than the budgetary allocation. Given the scale of the crisis, which the Taoiseach has acknowledged, why are these budgets going unspent? Will he redirect funds into, for example, recruiting more construction workers to ensure increased capacity? Will he cut the red tape and enable local authorities to build homes, as they did before at a time when we saw really serious numbers of homes being built every year?

The reality is that the housing crisis is not improving under the Taoiseach's Government despite the multitude of announcements of new schemes. We still see money going unspent and homelessness figures rising. I ask the Taoiseach again where the blockage is in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and why we are not seeing delivery.

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