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

There is now a mountain of evidence that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael deliberately misrepresented housing delivery figures during the election. The Taoiseach cannot continue to deny it. This is a Comical Ali routine he is playing in pretending it was somehow an honest mistake. Not content with massaging last year's figures, the targets for this year are now being clearly reverse engineered. When the Taoiseach was asked by RTÉ in February about housing targets for this year, he dodged the question. He would not give an answer on housing targets for this year. In advance of the election, he was very clear on housing targets, as was Fine Gael. He said this year's target was 41,000 homes. Are we now to understand that this figure is not worth the paper it is written on? Does the Taoiseach think that people will forget the commitments he made just a few months ago?

The reality is that the Taoiseach's Government has been found out and his housing plan is not working.

Housing is about more than bricks and mortar; it is about independence and security. It is about starting a family and putting roots down in a community. There are now tens of thousands of people throughout Ireland who are missing out on this. They are people who feel disconnected from society and forgotten by government, and who feel that their lives are passing them by.

There are solutions to the housing crisis. We have put forward many. For example, we proposed the introduction of affordable housing zoning. The Government voted this proposal down. We proposed early-stage finance to get affordable housing projects off the ground. The Government has not taken up this proposal. Can the Taoiseach level with us now and confirm the Government's housing target for this year is 41,000 homes? Does he accept that it is not going to meet that target, and what radical measures is he going to take to ensure we build the amount of affordable homes needed?

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