Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I have watched the Taoiseach's answers in the Dáil Chamber over the last five years. I have to say the answer he gave on housing and the 40,000 homes is one of the weakest I have ever seen him deliver in this House. He said he had a genuine belief that 40,000 homes would be delivered, based on estimates from private entities. Why did the Taoiseach completely disregard the hard data coming from the official State bodies, like the CSO, which were completely disputing his claim of 40,000 homes? Why did the Taoiseach not accept that data from the CSO? Is it only when it comes to housing completions in an election year that he does not listen to CSO data? Is that the case? Is it that for everything else he accepts CSO data, but not when it comes to housing completions in an election year? Can the Taoiseach explain why he does not accept the official data sources from the Central Bank, the ESRI and the CSO? Although the Taoiseach, the then Minister for housing, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and the Tánaiste, Deputy Simon Harris, were saying 40,000 homes, all of those bodies were disputing that and the Government was not listening. Why is that?

In the run-up to the election, the Government spin on this was relentless. It was said time and again that the housing plan was working and that 40,000 homes would be delivered. The Government did this despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. It ignored all of the reports from the CSO, the Central Bank and the ESRI that said housing delivery would be nowhere near 40,000 homes. In a video posted during the election, the Taoiseach said that when the Government came into office, we had 20,000 houses being built a year, and we are now coming close to 40,000. Deputies Darragh O'Brien and Simon Harris likewise made similar statements, and Deputy O'Brien even claimed at times that there was going to be in excess of 40,000 homes delivered. In fact, we got 10,000 fewer homes than the 40,000 promised, which was a 7% decrease on the year before.

Let us be clear about this. These claims were made as recently as last November, just ten weeks ago. For those to have stood up, there would have to have been 10,000 additional homes near completion at that point. There were not. Those homes do not exist. This is not just an academic issue about numbers. This is about people whose hopes and dreams of affording their own home are being shattered by this lack of delivery. Was the Taoiseach’s claim that 40,000 homes would be delivered last year a deliberate deception? Does he regret misleading the public on this?

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