Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would advise the Deputy to read it when it is published, too, and then we can have a more informed discussion on it because the report very clearly talks about the need for diverse funding models. Yes, we need and have record levels of Exchequer development, but this idea of private investment and diverse sources of investment being the devil incarnate is not what the report has found. It is just the Deputy’s political view of the world.

We asked 12 people to come together. We asked them to do three years of work. They did it and we should be grateful to them. Let us read the terms of reference as well. We asked them to outline what housing policy post 2030 should look like. That just keeps getting airbrushed. This is 2024, so we are not post 2030. Everyone is just jumping to asking why we have not done everything in the Housing Commission report. It is not post 2030 and I have not had a chance to analyse all of the recommendations yet. So, let us read the report and consider it.

We need to continue in the here and now to do everything we can to help people who are trying to buy their own homes. That is why we are now seeing a very significant increase in housing supply, a very significant increase in social housing supply, and a very significant increase in the incentives available to people that the Deputy is not in favour of in terms of the help-to-buy scheme and the first-time buyers scheme.

I take the point that the Deputy makes about some of the rental supports, the wish for those not to be a permanent destination for people and the need to get people secure accommodation, be it social, affordable or private, but I also get the point that he raises with me on a very regular basis in this House – probably once per week – about the need to continue with those supports and the need to reform and improve them further.

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