The fate of hundreds of thousands of young people, workers, families and those with a disability relies on what the Government will publish in its new plan for housing tomorrow. It is not a dramatic statement to say that young people are leaving our shores, workers with good jobs and decent incomes have zero hope of being able to buy, workers of all ages are condemned to a rental market with exorbitant rents, and thousands of families are facing a very uncertain winter and new year because of the Government's heartless changes to rent protections earlier this year. For too many, our country has become one of luck, when you were born, if you have a partner and if your parents were able to help you with a deposit to be able to access a secure, safe and affordable home. Tomorrow, I have no doubt the Government will try to dazzle the public with announcements of new schemes, funds and extra billions of euro. However, it is not a case of what you spend but how you spend it. The Government has spent enormous amounts of money on the purchase of turn-key apartments that were originally designed to be sold on the open market. Not only is this a massive transfer to developers, but it also squeezes out home buyers desperate to purchase a home. Last year, councils and approved housing bodies, AHBs, directly built a paltry 335 new social homes, yet the public sector spent over €2 billion purchasing over 4,700 new units. It spent an average of €431,000 per unit, which is a whopping 24% increase on the previous year. Somebody somewhere is laughing, and it is not ordinary people out there, desperately looking for a home. The Department of public expenditure and reform admitted in 2023 that turnkey acquisitions were 21% more expensive than a direct build. Yet, Government reliance on private developers to bail it out of the social and affordable housing crisis has gone up, not down. In budget 2026 the Government spent €270 million in tax cuts to developers in its latest wing-and-a-prayer attempt to get apartments built. These are all massive transfers to developers. It makes a complete laughing stock of any claim to be value for money and, devastatingly, it squeezes the existing availability of homes for purchase that should be within workers' reach. All the while, the Land Development Agency, the State agency set up to get houses built, is moving at a snail's pace, with just 281 directly-built homes to the end of last year. My question to the Taoiseach regarding the Government's housing plan is: will it reverse course and prioritise direct building on the lands the State owns? Will the Taoiseach ensure that, for the over 4,700 people who are facing notice of termination coming into the winter, the Government will put in place an eviction ban? We know from the Daft report today that the number of rental properties is at an all-time low and people have nowhere to go. Will the Taoiseach ensure that with regard to construction labour supply, particularly apprentices, the Government makes good on the promise to pay them the national minimum wage as promised by the Tánaiste three years ago?
Sentiment score: -0.01
What I am hearing from the Taoiseach is that Housing for All was a success, yet we have over 16,000 people registered as homeless. By any measure, the Government's housing policies have been an abject failure. There are unprecedented amounts going into housing, but where are they going? They are going to developers on foot of the policy of this Government in respect of turnkey acquisitions as opposed to building directly. In the context of ideas, we have said many things with regard to housing. We have talked about expanding the Land Development Agency's powers in order that it would not have to go agency by agency but could instead use compulsory purchase orders on a bigger scale. We have also talked about the construction labour supply. We never hear any answers from the Government about how to expand construction labour supply. We have talked about a State construction company and about apprenticeships. I have heard nothing from the Government in that regard. Instead, all too often, the Government throws its hands in the air and says we cannot get the workers. We have brought forward proposals-----
Sentiment score: 0.07
-----with regard to workers and how to secure apprentices and bring them into the system. The Government has failed in that regard.
Sentiment score: -0.09
Absolutely not.
Sentiment score: 0.00
That is not true. It is factually incorrect.
Sentiment score: -0.16