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

They say every day is a school day. While the Dáil rose last week, we all learned something new. We all thought we knew why we had a housing crisis in this country - the number one issue facing this country, as the Taoiseach just said. We thought we had a housing crisis because of the Government’s policies and flat refusal to restrict evictions and stop families falling into homelessness. We thought it was because of the Government's failure to raise building targets, weak enforcement measures to tackle vacancy and dereliction and its ill-conceived planning Act, apparently drafted for and by developers. We all thought these were causal factors of the housing crisis, but after watching the Taoiseach's bilateral press conference with US President Trump last week, we all were surprised to learn that, in fact, these systemic failures were not the root causes of the housing crisis. The spiralling rents, unaffordable house prices and, shamefully, rising record figures in homelessness are apparently because we are doing so well. “That’s a good problem, not a bad problem", in the words of President Trump. The Taoiseach might clarify if it is a view he shares because in reply, he said: "That’s a pretty good answer, Mr. President".

I am sure that is not the response he would give the Irish people today. In fairness, I will acknowledge that he did go on to elaborate that we have to build more houses and we have to build them more quickly. We all agree with that but what we are not seeing from his Government is any sign of the necessary urgency or ambition or any new ideas that would actually enable us to build more homes more quickly. In today's quarterly bulletin from the Central Bank the forecasts for housing completions are revised down again. The report calls on the Government to build at scale, implement modern methods of construction, incentivise use of available land to build homes and deliver public infrastructure and a more effective planning regime. We have heard these calls before from the Taoiseach's very own Housing Commission, apart from anywhere else. Indeed, his party claimed that those policy objectives would be delivered on through what we now know to be the Government's failed Housing for All plan and through the Planning and Development Act, the most verbose missed opportunity in the history of the State. Under those initiatives things have got worse, not better.

This Government and the previous one have been moving at a snail's pace on housing. It is more than a year since the Government accepted that our ambition for at least 50,000 new-build homes per year would be needed to house the population but still it is working towards old targets and not even meeting them. Indeed, in the general election campaign, the Taoiseach and his Ministers actively misled the public on the figures for housing completions. We now know this. The Taoiseach spoke of propaganda but what we heard from his Government during the general election campaign was propaganda on housing that had no basis in fact. What we now need are new ideas and some urgency. Will the Taoiseach work with us in the Labour Party? We have constructive ideas. For example, our housing solidarity bond would redirect private investment into the building of homes using the money held on deposit in banks around the country. The Central Bank tells us the value of savings is higher than ever. Will the Taoiseach take on board new ideas that would actually enable us to build more homes more quickly and give our young people hope for the future?

See this speech in context