Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Housing costs in the State are the most expensive anywhere in the EU. According to the latest figures from EUROSTAT, we are at the top of the housing cost table. It is no wonder people are crying out for more affordable homes.

We are in this mess because of the failed policies of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that have created the housing crisis and yet the Minister and the Government expect us to believe that the people who caused the crisis are somehow the same people we should entrust to fix it. It is clear from their plan that the Government will not deliver what is necessary to deliver affordable homes. For one thing, their figures just do not add up. The Government is saying that it will deliver 4,000 affordable homes this year, 5,000 the year after and 6,500 the year after that, but that is just not true. The Government should be honest with people because 2,000 of those homes annually are unaffordable homes priced on the open market that will be purchased with the shared equity loan scheme. That means affordable housing provision next year will, at best, be 2,100 units. It might go up to 3,000 the year after and somewhere close to 4,000 the year after that, if the Government meets its targets. The number of affordable homes to be delivered through the cost rental equity loan and affordable housing fund this year is so low that I do not see how the Government will deliver 2,000 affordable homes through those schemes next year.

It is clear from reading this plan that the Government is out of touch and out of ideas. It is becoming more and more apparent to the public. Again and again, the Government sides with the interests of big developers, large landowners and international institutional investors over the needs of ordinary workers and families.

The Government does not have the mettle to stand up and do what is necessary to address the housing crisis, and a great example of this is the Part V provision. The Housing Agency released a good report that gave a variety of options to reform it. Needless to say, the Minister chose the most pro-developer option available, which is that any landowner who has not secured planning permission has until 2026, and only the 10% applies. That is not reform. That is giving the developers everything they have asked for on a plate to the detriment of delivery of affordable homes for working people.

The approach to housing policy shows how blinkered the Minister is because he believes the private sector can meet the overwhelming majority of social and affordable housing need. We are not seeing the fundamental change that is necessary to undo the damage of decades of failed Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael policy. We need a doubling of direct capital investment by the Government in public housing on public land. We need 20,000 social and affordable homes every year delivered by local authorities, approved housing bodies, AHBs, and community housing trusts. That is the sort of fundamental change that is required to address this problem. Instead, we have a housing Minister who is out of touch and out of ideas. He will ensure that the housing crisis will roll on for years and years while big developers and investments will be laughing the whole way to the bank. Only a Sinn Féin Government and a Sinn Féin housing Minister will make the kind of change in housing that is needed to end the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael housing crisis.