Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The reality is this Government has normalised child homelessness and that should never be accepted in this State. Is this the society we want to be? It is not. The two Ministers have been in government, as the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, said, for just over three years now. Let us look at their record on housing. Since taking office, average rents have increased by 33%. That means the average renter is paying €5,000 more in rent every single year since this Government took office just over three years ago. Those who want to buy a house have seen house prices increase by €60,000 since this Government took office three years ago. God forbid someone would live in Wicklow because they went up by €90,000 there, or €70,000 in Kildare. That is the record of this Government. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has said the Government has turned a corner on the issue of housing. What planet is he living on? He is certainly not living on this one. Is í an ghéarchéim thithíochta an teip is mó ag an Rialtas. Thabharfadh Sinn Féin tús áite don ghéarchéim thithíochta. Faoin Rialtas seo tá na glúnta daoine ann nach mbeadh seans acu a gcuid tithe a dhíol ná a chíosú. Léiríonn an cháinaisnéis seo nach bhfuil plean ag an Rialtas feabhas a chur ar shaolta na ndaoine seo.

The Government's abject failure to deliver affordable homes to buy and to reduce rents is crushing the living standards of ordinary people and it is punishing those so desperate to build for the future. The Government and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, who is sitting over there, have missed every single target he has set on affordable housing. He has missed every single one of them, year after year, since taking office. What is more fundamental is that the plan that underpins this budget and the targets, even if they were reached, is doomed to fail. We know that, the Ministers know that and everybody knows that. These targets are universally acknowledged as being too low. What has the Government done in its budget today to respond to all of that? It did not increase the targets at all. Not one additional home is it planning to build on top of what it has already set out. Not one additional home. There is no ramping up in housing under this budget. Last year, for 2023, the Government allocated €2.6 billion to the capital housing programme. This year, it has allocated the same amount of money. There is no increased investment and no increased urgency. In the middle of a housing crisis, it is shameful. You could not make it up that the Government has decided not even to ramp up housing delivery before what it has planned.

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