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

On behalf of the Social Democrats, I extend sympathies to Deputy Lawlor.

Fine Gael has been in government for nearly 15 years. That is 15 years of promises, plans and press conferences with Ministers donning hard hats, 15 years spent turning the housing crisis into a housing disaster. Under the Tánaiste's watch, house prices have almost doubled, skyrocketing rents have more than doubled and the number of people who are homeless has increased by more than 400%.

This morning Fine Gael's fourth housing plan was launched. This time, we are told, it will be different. How can it be? The plan contains the same recipe for failure. There is no sign of the radical policy changes called for by the Housing Commission. Worse, there is no hope for the locked out generation that anything will get any better.

The housing crisis is a daily struggle etched into the lives of tens of thousands of people. Generations of families are crammed into overcrowded houses. Entire families are living in box rooms. Toddlers are growing up in homeless accommodation without the physical space to learn how to crawl. Adults are stuck in their childhood bedrooms, putting their lives on hold year after year. The mental toll this is taking is immense. Stress, anxiety and hopelessness are becoming the norm for people who are stuck in this housing limbo. People's lives are being ruined.

In the run-up to the last election, Fine Gael promised that 40,000 homes would be built last year. This has been exposed as a complete and utter fabrication. What is the Government's response? It has scrapped annual targets from its housing plan. All of a sudden, it thinks they are a bad idea. I have news for the Tánaiste. The latest desperate attempt to disguise the Government's terrible record in housing will not work. No sleight of hand can hide the mess Fine Gael Governments have made. That annual targets have disappeared from this plan is damning. If the Government had any confidence in its plan, or in its housing Minister, that would not have happened. The housing Minister who has delayed the launch of this plan for almost a year will not even hang around to debate it this evening. He is running scared.

This plan could have been different. It could have been radical. The Government could have announced plans to build a modular homes factory to turbo-charge the delivery of affordable homes. It could have given the Land Development Agency, LDA, the power it needs to assemble land banks and deliver homes quickly. It could have fast-tracked a vacant homes tax with teeth to get tens of thousands of vacant homes back into use. Instead, the Government has reverted to type with sweetheart deals for developers, tax breaks for investment funds and a doubling down on failure. Given Fine Gael's track record of failure in housing, why should people believe this plan will be any better than the ones that came before it?

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