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

Fine Gael promised 40,000 homes in the last election campaign. That was a complete and utter fabrication and now it is making its annual housing target disappear because it cannot stand over its record and it does not want accountability on it. Since Fine Gael took office, rents and house prices have soared to record levels, home ownership levels have collapsed and now more than 5,200 children are growing up without a home. That is more than the overall number of people who were homeless when Fine Gael took office.

At the same, it has given away billions in tax subsidies to developers, with no link to affordability measures. Last year the CEO of Glenveagh Properties, one of the largest developers in Ireland, saw his salary balloon by 80% to €2.7 million. That is where some of these subsidies are going, to those kinds of outrageous levels of remuneration.

Why should anyone believe anything the Tánaiste says now will be different?

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