Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is a great man for the facts. The real facts and the truth on the ground is that last year he and the Government delivered 323 affordable houses and 135 of them were in Cork. I can be critical of Cork City Council sometimes, but on affordable housing, it has led the way.

The Minister gave it a target of 278, to be completed by 2026. It will probably have it met next year or, at the latest, the year after. Two hundred and seventy-eight by 2026 is a paltry target and the Minister is saying the Government has a plan to sort the housing crisis, including the affordable housing crisis. Its plan is too small and will not solve the crisis.

Some local authorities want to build affordable houses and give people a chance but they are not being supported by this Government, including the Minister. In this regard, I will give the Minister one more fact. In Glanmire, 1,200 people applied for a cost-rental scheme involving 32 units. That is the scale at which we need to be delivering but the Government is not doing so.

Let me give some of the facts, one of which concerns a lady I met last week who told me she has a son and daughter in England. The son has bought an apartment. Another son, who was working in Canada for a couple of years, came home when his visa ran out. He got the visa back on a Wednesday and was in Canada the following Sunday because he does not see a future here. He wants to remain in Canada full time. It is this Government that is driving people there.

I was talking to a couple whose two grown-up kids came back home. The daughter did so because she is saving for a mortgage and the son because he could not afford the sky-high rents that the Government has overseen. The couple had raised their kids and worked hard and now was their time, but they could not have that time because their children had to come home owing to the Government's failed housing policy.

I will leave the Minister with the case of a couple I know who were staunch Fianna Fáil supporters. The woman told me she will never vote for Fianna Fáil again because it drove her four children to the four corners of the world. Two are in Australia, one is in England, and one is in America. She said to me that voting for the party was nearly the worst thing she ever did. She and her husband worked hard, educated their kids and did everything right, and then Fianna Fáil drove those kids to the four corners of the world. That is the reality of the Minister's housing policy. He is coming in here to tell us about all he is doing as Minister responsible for housing when the facts are that homelessness has never been worse, rents have never been as high and the cost of purchasing a house has never been as high. Apart from politics, does the Minister not look at things sometimes and say we are not getting them right? Is there a time when he is ever honest with the Department, Opposition and people, because it is all about the people? The Government is not delivering and the people are suffering.

I support Deputy Cian O'Callaghan and the motion of his party, the Social Democrats, because if we do not get affordable, cost-rental and social housing right, the crisis will only get much worse.

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