Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

I disagree fundamentally with Deputy Bacik's analysis in terms of housing policy more generally. Fianna Fáil and the previous Government did not double down on the policy of the last number of decades. The bottom line is, in 2023, for example, we saw the highest level of delivery of new build social housing since 1975. That is not doubling down on previous policies. It represents a step change in the building of social housing, which has happened over the past three to four years. The Deputy cannot deny that. We have higher targets but you simply cannot deny the fact that 48,000 new social homes is a step change from where we were before 2020. Whatever other hyperbole the Deputy will engage in, we have to deal in facts. The only agenda I as Taoiseach and the Government have is to build as many houses as we possibly can as fast as we can; that is it. I will do everything I can to make that happen across a number of fronts.

The Deputy said we ignored the Housing Commission. We did not but the Labour Party did. The Deputy made a false statement when she said I said we might get rid of RPZs. I never once used those words. Go and check it, please, find the quotation and come back to me. I said a review of RPZ was under way. Guess who suggested there should be a review of the RPZs - the Housing Commission. I knew when the Deputy feigned interest in the Housing Commission's report that she did not really mean it because if she looks at the chapter on the rental market, it criticises the Oireachtas for its approach. It makes clear that we should explore issues with RPZs and so on - not get rid of them but explore the matter - and give certainty to private sector investment. I have said we need private sector investment in addition to public sector investment. Public sector investment this year will certainly go to €7 billion. Others estimate we will need approximately €20 billion. The State cannot do it all. We need private sector investment. Deputy Bacik's party and others have rubbished institutional funds as a vehicle for private sector investment in the housing market. It simply is not credible or sustainable to suggest that the Labour Party has a credible housing policy if it rules that out as a funding option for housing. Yet, that is what the Labour Party, the Social Democrats and others are doing and have been for the past four to five years because it is populist. It is good short-termism but it will not build a house. We need all hands on deck in housing. We need to unblock barriers on the ground. The housing activation office is not a secret; it was in the programme for Government, which was published. There was no secret about it at all.

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