4. Deputy Rory Hearne asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if his attention has been drawn to recent CSO data showing that the number of new homes approved annually fell by over 21% in 2024; his plans to introduce an alternative policy measure to address this; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12895/25]

Sentiment score: 0.16

In terms of the planning applications, we have seen a significant fall in applications. The figures are down over 21% annually, and apartments even further. What are the Minister's plans to address this? In particular, does it not show that the Minister's housing policy and Housing for All as a policy has not worked, that new measures are required and, in fact, that the reliance on institutional investors to deliver homes and apartments is an unreliable approach?

Sentiment score: 0.05

I do not see the radical reset in the Minister's response that the Housing Commission called for and the Minister himself agreed was needed. We know the definition of insanity is continuing the same policy or same approach and expecting a different outcome. On the question about the planning and apartments, there is over-reliance on institutional investors. Institutional investors invest on the basis of their profit viability projections. If they think that there is not sufficient profit there, they do not invest. Is the policy plan essentially to increase their profits so that it becomes, in their estimation, viable? We know what that means. It means rents rising or other ways. Is the Minister talking about, as we have heard, tax breaks? Is he talking about more subsidies? The Government's own croí conaithe scheme, The Irish Times showed today, has only delivered 20% of the apartments it was supposed to deliver. In that, developers could get €120,000 per apartment. Where is it proposed that the subsidies would end?

Sentiment score: 0.03

The Minister is repeating the same tropes that the Taoiseach repeats that we have had no alternatives. If the Minister looked at our election manifesto, he is correct that we talked about using private investment but it is the particular type of private investment. The Taoiseach is also spinning this by saying we are against private investment. We are not against private investment in housing. What we are against is shaping the entire housing system around the profitability demands of institutional funds and institutional investors. There are multiple different forms of private investment. One of the solutions we have put forward is using a new State saving scheme, as they do in France, to leverage the €160 billion that is available in banks in this country. We cannot just rely on commercial banks to channel that money into housing. What they have in France is a state saving scheme that creates a fund that funds affordable housing directly. Why can we not do that? That is private finance but it is not the speculative private finance that the Government seems to be obsessed with.

Sentiment score: 0.01