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

The Minister wants to deal with facts. This month marks two years since the launch of his Housing for All programme. In all the facts and on all the objective metrics, Housing for All is failing. It is failing in ambition and delivery. The Minister has said himself that the Government needs to catch up on housing delivery. That is evident but it also needs to upgrade its targets. As our housing disaster deepens, it is becoming clear that Housing for All or "Housing for Some, as it might more appropriately be called, has failed. It is failing partly because the targets are too low. The Minister knows from his own figures that, with a growing population, the target should be closer to 50,000 new builds per year, not the 29,000 or 30,000 level at which new builds are flatlining.

An economic analysis for the Labour Party also shows that we need to see significant additional capital investment in housing delivery of at least €1 billion this year. I do not know if the Minister can accept that. We also know there is a need to deliver an ambitious recruitment programme to ensure we have enough skilled labour to deliver housing. The Minister and his Government colleagues always refer to shortages in labour supply but we need to see some ambition and the delivery of increased recruitment in the construction trades, increased recruitment campaigns and better pay and conditions for apprenticeships, with a beefed up apprenticeship programme as well. Otherwise, the Minister's plan is incapable of delivering the real need.

To deal again with facts, two years on, house prices have skyrocketed, rents are spiralling and each month we are seeing, unfortunately, record-breaking homelessness figures. Homelessness is now at 12,847 individuals, each with his or her own story of distress and of being out of a home. House prices have increased by nearly 20% since September 2021. Rents are up 21%. All the key indicators are showing failure on the Housing for All programme, both in ambition and on delivery. It is just not good enough. We are seeing people and families being failed. Every family and community affected by the housing disaster, every individual young or old, knows that it is impacting upon them and on their communities.

Let us take the shameful lifting of the temporary ban on no-fault evictions, which the Government lifted in March without any clear evidence basis. The Minister's party leader, the Tánaiste, asserted that the Labour Party's proposal to keep the ban in place until homelessness figures had been shown to have fallen would exacerbate the situation. The Minister's own policy has exacerbated the situation. Official homelessness figures have risen by another 11% since March. There are now 3,873 children in homelessness, doing their homework on hotel floors and unable to bring friends home on play dates. That is a shocking and unacceptable situation in 2023.

Will the Minister take ownership of his decision to lift the ban and will he reinstitute it for this year? Does he accept that Housing for All has failed on ambition and in delivery? Will he adopt more ambitious targets and a more ambitious programme that would really deliver for the communities that so desperately need new homes?

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