I could not disagree more with the Deputy on her critique of Government housing policy. The bottom line is that if we look over the past four years, there has been a very significant step change in the level and scale of housing delivery in this country. On social housing alone, more than 48,000 houses have been added to the social housing stock.
Sentiment score: 0.10
Not since the 1970s have we seen that level and scale of social house building and social house provision. Those are the facts. We need to do far more than that but, without question, the number of social houses built in the past three to four years is without compare and we would have to go back to the 1970s to get similar levels of social house completion.
Sentiment score: -0.03
In the first three years of Housing for All - 2022 to 2024 - overall housing targets were exceeded. It is not all failure and failure as Deputy McDonald dismisses it. Those were the targets set by Housing for All and they were exceeded. More than 130,000 houses were constructed.
Sentiment score: 0.17
We need to do much, much more. The ESRI has said that the need, as a result of population growth and so on, is approximately 50,000 per annum. Sinn Féin has failed in any shape or form to provide any substance underpinning housing policy in respect of how it would achieve that target, never mind the 30,000-plus that have been achieved on an annual basis over the past three years.
Sentiment score: 0.11
Its policies were demonstrably anti-first-time buyer and there has been quite a significant drawdown of mortgages. Up to 120,000 first-time buyer mortgages have been drawn down over the past number of years.
Sentiment score: 0.17
If Sinn Féin had its way, it would have taken away the supports such as the help to buy scheme or indeed the first home scheme from those first-time buyers and it would have destroyed the momentum that has been built up over the past number of years-----
Sentiment score: 0.32
-----in respect of first-time buyers. That is the reality. Deputy Mac Lochlainn can smile all he likes but that is the truth. Sinn Féin wanted to get rid of the help to buy scheme. It wanted to get rid of the bridge the gap scheme. Will he please explain to first-time buyers how that would have assisted them? It would not have in any shape or form. We will maintain the focus on social housing, affordable housing and on our work with the Land Development Agency. Already this year, an additional €800 million has been allocated on top of the €6 billion.
Sentiment score: 0.23
That includes €450 million for a further 3,000 affordable and social homes and €325 million in respect of second-hand acquisitions, incorporating the tenant in situ scheme and the provision for that. Since 2023 alone-----
Sentiment score: 0.24
-----over 3,300 homes have been acquired through second-hand acquisitions, as they are called, by local authorities across the country. We have published the national planning framework since coming back into office, which will facilitate the zoning of a considerably greater degree of land. I hope Sinn Féin will support that on local authorities across the country and get rid of its serial opposition to social housing that has been demonstrated time and time again.
Sentiment score: 0.37
The heads of the short-term lets Bill have been brought to Cabinet-----
Sentiment score: 0.00
-----and approved by Cabinet.
Sentiment score: 0.42
The Government decided today to establish the housing activation office. No decision has been taken as to who will head up that office but the person will be seconded from within the public service. That is an intention, which basically means there will be no additional cost in salary or whatever-----
Sentiment score: -0.15
-----to housing - or to anybody, for that matter - in terms of a secondment-----
Sentiment score: 0.03
-----within the public service. That is the objective, but no decision has been made, so I am not in a position to confirm anything to Deputy McDonald today in that respect.
Sentiment score: 0.16
I wish to confirm to the Deputy that the Central Statistics Office on Thursday - and the Deputy is good for giving her side or perspective all the time - indicated that close to 6,000 new homes were completed in the first quarter of 2025, which is the second highest first quarter delivery since the day the series began in 2011 and a 2% increase on the first quarter of 2024. It is a figure that the Deputy did not in any shape or form refer to.
Sentiment score: 0.43
That is not surprising because she did not in any shape or form want to point to any figures that would give some degree of positive reality. We want to build far more and we acknowledge that we have far more to build. The Deputy has a record of opposing well over 1,000 houses in her own constituency.
Sentiment score: 0.27
She has put her own constituency needs above and beyond the housing-----
Sentiment score: 0.00
She did. She objected to well over 1,000 houses in her constituency.
Sentiment score: 0.14
It is a bit rich of her to come in here on a daily basis ranting about housing when her own record in respect of giving it the ultimate priority that it deserves is fairly poor in terms of her performance.
Sentiment score: 0.72
The programme for Government-----
Sentiment score: 0.00
-----is clear in its decision. The programme ordained that we would set up a housing activation office because we are going to consistently add to the initiatives we have taken in housing-----
Sentiment score: 0.19
-----and we make no apologies for doing further in terms of-----
Sentiment score: -0.30
I thank the Deputy for raising this very important issue which is top of the Government's priorities, namely, special needs in general and especially special needs education. I make the point special education now accounts for about 28% of the entire education budget. That is a 48% increase in four years since 2020. Staffing has grown 27%, with 23,400 special needs assistants now in our school system. That is not a story of pulling back, regression, cuts or anything like that, but one of expansion and growth and it will continue to grow. We now have 124 special schools serving 9,112 pupils. There have been 11 new ones opened since 2020, with five more opening in the academic year 2025-2026. The number of children attending special classes in mainstream schools has doubled over the past five years from just over 9,000 in 2019 to almost 19,000 in 2024, with 3,335 special classes now in place to support them. Up to 2,700 new special education placements are planned for 2025-2026. This includes 400 new special classes and 300 special school places. There have been 399 new special classes sanctioned to date and the remainder will follow. An additional 1,200 places are available due to student movement. We will provide up to 3,900 placements this year for about 3,275 seeking them. The aim is to get a place for every child. There have been issues in terms of geography and certain locations and so on, but no stone is being left unturned to get a place for every child this September, because it is a constitutional right of every child to enjoy an education. It is the Government's obligation to vindicate that right. It is far better that resources are allocated to schools as opposed to the courts. That is always my objective and that of the Minister for Education, Deputy McEntee, and the Minister of State for special education, Deputy Michael Moynihan. We will continue to work on this matter at primary and post-primary levels and make sure we do everything we can. There are still some challenges in the Dublin area in the context of the speed of getting special classes constructed, planning constraints, etc., but we are working flat out. The Minister and Minister of State are doing so on the special education front. On assessments of need, we have developed and sanctioned the national in-school therapy programme. That is on the way. The decision has been taken. We will roll out a national system whereby we will have therapists starting in our special schools.
Sentiment score: 0.32
As I said, there is a plan. In the past five years, we provided 11 new special schools and five more are set for 2025-26. On the High Court decision some years ago in respect of preliminary assessments or the then system organised by the HSE, the experts have come back to the Government and stated that it has compounded the delay and backlog relating to assessments of need. The Government is looking at legislative options to create a better screening programme to make sure there is ongoing assessment to deal with that backlog. That work is under way. Yesterday, the Cabinet sub-committee on disability took decisions in that respect. The Minister, Deputy Foley, and the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, in the Department of children made contributions at that meeting. Last year, the previous Government approved the recruitment of 40-odd therapists to work with the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, in an advisory capacity for schools. There has been strong and very successful recruitment process, which is interesting. The next phase will be a national in-school therapy scheme provided by the NCSE on behalf of schools, initially for special schools, under which therapists will be recruited.
Sentiment score: 0.38
I appreciate the Deputy raising this issue again. Some 7,100 affordable housing solutions were delivered in 2024, exceeding the delivery target of 6,400. Since we came into office in 2020, nearly 13,000 affordable housing options have been delivered by the various delivery partners. Help to buy has helped young people to afford to buy first time new-build houses. Bridge the gap has also helped first-time buyers in terms of affordability. Those are schemes the Deputy's party opposed, which raises the fundamental question of how it would have assisted people when it comes to affordability in the context of new homes. The Government will always consider new proposals, but this is about supply. I read the article by Deputy Hearne in respect of the Social Democrats' version of a special savings incentive account, SSIA, scheme to create funding for affordable homes. That does not actually build homes. It can perhaps help to create funding, but it will not lead to homes being built in the short term. The Deputy said it is an alternative to investment funds. We do not have too many investment funds investing in housing in the Irish economy right now, and that is a problem. We had an SSIA scheme in the past. It was roundly criticised at the time. We have moved into a new era. The Government is open to consideration of a range of issues. The more fundamental point is how we get 50,000 houses built. I have genuinely yet to see anything from the Opposition that answers that question. The Government has built in or around 30,000 units. There has been a step change in the past four years from where we were, but this has taken huge investment on the part of the Government. On its own, that will not suffice. We accept the argument that additional funding is required. We need private sector funding. The Deputy seems to suggest that a savings and investment type scheme would be an alternative to investment funds. I argue that we need to attract investment into Ireland in order to get more private sector supply and add to the €6 billion plus the Government will put into housing this year. We have added €800 million already, so the figure for 2025 will be more than €7 billion in terms of Government funding for housing. We need alternative sources of funding to add to that. If the Deputy wants to put forward a detailed proposal in that respect, we will gladly receive it. I read one article on the matter. It is not clear from said article as to how that would cause a significant ramping up of construction of housing. We are open to any proposals on that front that the Deputy's party may have. If the Social Democrats can give us a detailed blueprint of the proposed scheme, we will certainly assess it.
Sentiment score: 0.11
The Deputy is very dismissive of the vacancy grants. They are a huge-----
Sentiment score: 0.11
They are a huge addition to making houses affordable for God's sake.
Sentiment score: 0.32
If the Deputy talks to anybody who avails of those grants, he will see they are incredibly substantial, and so are the grants for dereliction if a person buys a derelict house and refurbishes it.
Sentiment score: 0.60
That makes it affordable. It made it possible, and it has been a success. I know the Social Democrats opposed it.
Sentiment score: 0.19
Some of them went out against that as well-----
Sentiment score: 0.00
-----because they went against the affordability legislation that passed through the House in the previous Dáil. The homelessness issue is becoming much more complex in terms of the composition of those who are homeless now-----
Sentiment score: 0.00
-----and the additional pressures that have come on in terms of emergency housing accommodation. It is not similar to what homelessness was five or six years ago. That needs to be acknowledged and analysed as well. What Government is focusing on is exiting people from homelessness as quickly as possible and preventing people from becoming homeless in the first instance.
Sentiment score: -0.09
I have been very consistent in this House, as the Government has been, in condemning Israeli attacks on Gaza and the continuing bombardment of Gaza. We have been absolutely consistent, without question. We have taken a whole range of steps since the outbreak of this terrible war and the horrific attack by Hamas on 7 October, which also deserves to be roundly condemned. I have done that, too. The blockade of the past 50 days, when no food, no medicines and no essential supplies have been allowed into Gaza, is a war crime. Of that, in our view, there is no doubt. It contravenes international humanitarian law. It is horrific in its enactment and implementation. Ireland has strongly supported UNRWA with, I believe, approximately €58 million, which is significantly per capita ahead of others. That is not the point, but we have. We have supported the organisation not only financially but also diplomatically and politically. We made efforts to ensure that when the storm was blowing and efforts were being made to try to undermine UNRWA, Ireland stood up and told the herd that was moving in that direction to stop because we needed to continue to support UNRWA. It is the only organisation that can play any meaningful role in the reconstruction of Gaza and the continuing provision of humanitarian supplies to Gaza. There has to be an immediate opening up of humanitarian access. We have recognised the State of Palestine. There was a lot of pressure in this House for us to do that. We did it with other countries to try to create leverage with the Arab peace plan and get momentum behind that. With Norway, Spain, Slovenia and others, we collectively did that. We have also intervened in the genocide case that South Africa has brought before the ICJ. We have made a thoughtful, strong and comprehensive legal intervention around the issue of the prevention of humanitarian aid in a time of war and invited the court to broaden its definitions in terms of intention as well as the prevention of humanitarian aid to a conflict area, in this case Gaza, so that they are broadly in line with the convention's definition. It was a well-informed submission that took a lot of criticism from different quarters. Nonetheless, it was an intervention that was considered and very well-informed and had greater credibility internationally because of that than would otherwise have been the case. It was not just a political or superficial intervention but a substantive one. The bottom line is that we must do everything. We can add with others to keep the pressure on through all the international forums of which we are a member, but we are not responsible for the actions of ministers Katz, Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and others, which are not in our name.
Sentiment score: -0.07
It is not-----
Sentiment score: 0.00
I never used the word "pride", so do not put words in my mouth, please. I never used that word, nor did I use the word "boast". Everything within our capacity to have an impact on this situation, we have been doing. We should not overinflate the impact of other measures the Deputy mentioned. There are no planes leaving Shannon for Gaza.
Sentiment score: 0.00
You have made an assertion that there are-----
Sentiment score: 0.00
-----and there are not. I respect the Deputy a lot and I respect her good faith on these issues to a point, but I often get the sense the debate on Palestine in this House and elsewhere is more about trying to create division between the public, the people and the Government of the day.
Sentiment score: 0.41
That is my genuine sense.
Sentiment score: 0.00
I have been through this since the beginning of the war and that is a genuine takeaway I have from some of the protestations and interruptions from certain people on the far left in particular-----
Sentiment score: -0.67
-----who have interrupted various meetings we have had, endeavouring to disrupt.
Sentiment score: -0.30
That is fine if people want to do that but it is not advancing, in my view, sensible, logical and rational debate as best we can.
Sentiment score: 0.81
What is going on is appalling. No one has a monopoly of virtue on the question in this House, nor should one seek to assert it.
Sentiment score: -0.10