Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 13 Dec 2022

Vol. 1031 No. 1

Confidence in Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Motion

The Taoiseach

I move:

That Dáil Éireann has confidence in the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O'Brien TD.

The Minister took up office at one of the most difficult moments in our modern history. The largest public health crisis and fastest moving recession to ever hit our country had brought a sudden halt to most aspects of economic and social life. It was a moment of great uncertainty about the future, and for every Minister. They were responsible for making sure public services kept functioning and urgent help was provided to families, businesses, and communities facing threats to their health and livelihood. The Minister dealt with the challenges faced by his Department with great dedication and commitment. He ensured that local authorities received extensive aid at a critical moment of need and that services were restored as quickly as possible.

Critically, he also did not wait to begin work on addressing the most important challenge he and all public representatives face, which is to significantly increase the supply of homes for people to buy or rent. No matter how serious a problem is, there are those who are willing to claim that nothing has been achieved until everything has been achieved. The only way to deliver more homes to buy or rent is to implement a full series of actions which deal with every element of the problem. More training places for critical trades, faster planning and development procedures, a new era in social housing, support for affordable homes for lower and middle-income earners: these and many other elements are essential to step-changing housing delivery for our growing population. The plans the Minister has developed and is implementing are already making a difference. Tá na pleananna atá forbartha agus curtha i bhfeidhm aige ag déanamh dul chun cinn suntasach agus athrú chun na maitheasa cheana féin fud fad na tíre.

When you put aside the angry bluster and populist nonsense, you see a hardworking and creative Minister who has led his Department well in the past two and a half years. He has substantially changed the direction of housing policy, introducing a new era of building social and affordable homes, and is implementing the first comprehensive programme for action, not just on one or two elements of the housing sector but on every element. What is more, this action is starting to work. In spite of being directly and personally targeted by Opposition parties and their online trolls, he has won every debate on this topic, exposing the vacuum which lies behind the mock anger and book-length emptiness of those who pretend to care about housing but just see it as another topic to exploit.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

Abú.

The Taoiseach

This is unfortunately a very populist moment we live in. It is increasingly hard for even the most important issues to be debated in a serious way. For example, during the roll-out of the vaccines, even one of the most successful programmes in the world was relentlessly attacked in political and media circles for failing to deliver everything immediately. According to this approach, until everything has been achieved nothing can be acknowledged and there is no such thing as a complex answer.

There is a clear and widening divide between those in this House who want to serve the people and those who are interested only in playing cynical politics. There is a difference between those who believe ours is a country which has achieved great things but must overcome urgent challenges and those who will mount any passing platform to claim nothing has ever been achieved in what they claim to be a failed state. They fake empathy for every group but systematically fail to show how their growing cascade of promises can be achieved. We are perhaps unique in Europe in having an Opposition which stands on every side of most issues: claiming to support action on climate but touring the country to find groups who want to hear them oppose every concrete step to combat the climate emergency; pretending to support Europe but systematically voting against it and condemning it at every opportunity; and showing mock concern for workers but constantly attacking policies central to supporting thousands of well-paid jobs.

Housing is perhaps the area where the Opposition trots out its rehearsed anger most but where its actions are almost breathtakingly cynical. A collection of people who angrily demanded we implement the disastrous zero-Covid policy has not the slightest credibility to anyone who cares to take the time to examine exactly what they propose when attacking the Government and its Ministers. It is important for us all to note that Opposition Members are not the slightest bit interested in more homes being delivered. The sole reason we are having this debate is that they thought it would give them another opportunity to attack the Government. Their problem is that they are attacking a Minister who is already making a significant positive impact. The measures he has put in place are starting to deliver.

Any honest debate about housing must start from the central fact that there has been a major increase in the demand for homes due to a rising population and a rising number of separate households. Within this, we have the exceptional response required to deal with supporting people whose homes are under attack in a vicious invasion and war against a democratic state. Any honest debate about housing will hear the stories of those in difficulty but also acknowledge the full picture. It will hear about those who find house prices impossible for them but acknowledge that new policies are having an impact, with 16,000 first-time buyers in the past 12 months. Honest debate must acknowledge that of all the public policy areas, this is one which requires sustained action for reform and investment over a significant period.

The Housing for All policy agreed by the Government and being implemented is unprecedented in scale and ambition. It represents a radical direct public intervention in the housing market. The claims it is an ideologically market-driven strategy are manifest nonsense. The Government has agreed and put in place funding of €4 billion per year to implement the plan. For a dramatic demonstration of the emptiness of Opposition housing policies, look no further than the fact that this is 40% bigger than the amount called for by Sinn Féin. When it comes to public investment in housing, we are delivering significantly more than the Opposition demanded.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

Hear, hear.

Deputy Aindrias Moynihan

Hear, hear.

The Taoiseach

Our plans address every element of housing provision, starting with the most basic of training for more craftspeople to build and renovate homes. Thousands of new apprenticeships are in place and people are being trained in new and urgently needed skills, including those who will support our programme to insulate social and private housing to reduce energy bills permanently and help meet climate targets. As a result of our policies, there are today 20,000 more people working in construction than before the pandemic.

Any fair person knows a major blockage in housing is also found in the length and complexity of our planning procedures. Almost no other country experiences the type of systematic objections and legal actions used to try to stop so many projects. Added to this is the policy of the largest Opposition party to oppose systematically significant developments using an ever-changing list of reasons.

Every single politician and party has spoken against some projects but no one has ever come near the industrial-scale opposition to constructing homes which is a defining part of Sinn Féin’s electoral strategy. There are thousands of homes which they have sought to block in Dublin alone, more than 5,000 since the last election. While they have not always succeeded, they have often delayed vital projects. This is not an accident; it is a policy and it is an abuse by a party that desperately wants housing to remain as an issue to be exploited.

Deputy Aindrias Moynihan

Hear, hear.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

Hear, hear.

The Taoiseach

Reform of planning laws is an essential part of delivering more homes and faster. We must protect the right of individuals to be heard and for legitimate concerns to require the revision of projects. However, the balance to date has made Ireland an outlier in how long and how often legitimate projects are delayed. This must change and it will change with the new legislation which we will be publishing shortly. Priority will be given to speeding up decisions relating to social, affordable and cost-rental housing. It is unfortunately already clear that the Opposition will vote against this legislation, once again claiming to care while trying to block action. This Government believes in the State playing the central role in providing for people who cannot otherwise find housing. That is why we have initiated a new era in the State purchasing, building and renovating social homes. There have already been more than 18,000 social homes added under the tenure of the Minister, including over 11,000 newly constructed social homes. We are implementing a range of major supports to tackle derelict sites and to bring them back to use as homes.

The time available in this debate does not allow me to go into detail in every area, but the progress we have made in helping people buy their own homes is not even acknowledged because the Members opposite hold an ideological position of opposing schemes that help people to own a home. In these and in many other areas, any fair evaluation of the record of the Minister and the Government will acknowledge that progress has begun despite the unprecedented challenges of the last two years. Not only has he produced a clear and ambitious strategy but he is also implementing it and it is making a difference.

San áireamh sna pleananna seo tá gnásanna níos tapúla pleanála, tógála agus forbartha. Tá ré nua i dtithíocht shóisialta agus tá tacaíocht do thithe inacmhainne dóibh siúd ar ioncaim ísle nó mheánaigh. Tá siad seo go léir, agus eilimintí riachtanacha eile, chun athrú ó bhonn a dhéanamh ar sholáthar tithíochta don daonra atá ag fás go leanúnach. Mar a dúirt mé cheana, tá na pleananna atá forbartha agus curtha i bhfeidhm ag an Aire, an Teachta Darragh O'Brien, ag déanamh dul chun cinn suntasach agus athrú chun na maitheasa cheana féin fud fad na tíre.

In the growing division of politics between those who want to solve problems but those who just want to exploit them, the Minister has shown his ability and his commitment to delivering the sustained action which is the only way of providing the homes our people need.

Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications (Deputy Eamon Ryan)

It is hard to switch from one subject to another. We have been speaking about Bobby Aylward and what people said is on my mind. That description of him as a republican stuck with me and I cannot stop thinking about it. I was watching the Civil War television programme last night on RTÉ. I do not know if anybody else saw it but it stuck out that people who were the best of friends were fighting one another. They were on the same side one week and were at odds the next week. Many parties in this House have roots in that republican tradition. In fact, the very socialist parties, I would imagine, would claim a similar understanding of that, which is that we are all equal. That is the first premise of socialist thinking. From a Green Party perspective, one of our founding principles is trust in the people, trust in constitutional democratic systems and trust down to the lowest, most effective level. We, too, have a republican bone in the very centre of our body.

I mention that because I do not think that it matters whether you come from Malahide or Mullinavat. It is important how you see the world. If you come with that republican tradition, that is a central test in this democratic House as to what you will deliver, what you will do and what decisions you will make. I think the Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, who is from Malahide, comes from the same republican tradition as that of the Aylwards in Mullinavat, which we have just heard about. That is important in a world in which, as the Taoiseach said, it is so easy to play it up and say, “You are the bad guys and we are the good guys”, or to divide our country between young and old, or rural and urban. That does not work for people either rural or urban.

There is a depiction of Ministers that if they cared, they would address the housing crisis or that if they had similar ethics or a belief in the people that some people have, we would all be sorted and there would not be a problem. In my mind, that is a false argument which I do not believe to be true.

The job of the Minister is not easy, nor is anyone’s job in wider Government. It is never easy in politics but this has particularly been the case in recent years in the delivery of housing, where there have been a number of headwinds. There is the fact that during Covid-19, we could not get people working on buildings at the time when we most needed people working on buildings. There is the fact that interest rates have just risen and a lot of the projects that would otherwise get built and funded will now not happen. This is a real challenge. There is the fact that global inflation, the price of steel, the price of all the raw materials and the supply chain are proving difficult and will add to all those headwinds. It is not easy, but I believe the broad approach that has been taken by the Minister has been the correct one.

In the Housing for All programme the word “All” is republican in its perspective. This Government is looking to deliver that - housing for all our people while prioritising social housing for those most in need who cannot protect or provide for themselves. The statistics or the numbers are clear in terms of meeting our targets this year despite all those headwinds. In particular, we have scaled up social housing delivery in a way that has not been done in this State for many decades, or for most of my lifetime.

I could cite other examples of real progress. In Cabinet today, we were discussing the various elements that we, as a party, have been arguing for for decades, which is that we listen to that constitutional case which was made four or five decades ago that the increased value from zoned land does not belong to the landowner but to the wider people. We are legislating for that. We are also legislating for what condemned and killed this country's housing for decades, which was the storing of land as a wealth-gaining measure. We will take that on by introducing a land use tax that taxes land that is zoned but has not been developed. During the week, I heard others argue against that and I can understand their concerns, but I think it is right and the republican thing to do.

Similarly, there is the redefinition by this Government of what is possible in housing with the introduction of cost-rental housing. This is a critical, historic change towards creating a new form of public housing that is open to everyone. That will bring the price down in a real way. We all agree that the rental sector and our young people are being hit hardest, particularly those who are trying to raise a family. That cost-rental housing offers real hope. I have heard the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, speak about how he is determined, as this Government is, to scale it up massively. I believe that will be seen as one of the most transformative changes that will come in this time of real change.

I could go on. Croí Cónaithe, the town centres first philosophy, is a change from the abandonment of towns that has occurred for the past four or five decades and it will start bringing people and life back into the centre. That is happening under this Government with all the challenges that are involved. There is Croí Cónaithe, Project Tosaigh and the planning reforms. In Cabinet today we discussed a significant and essential upgrade of the planning system so we can help to deliver housing for our people. We cannot on the one hand hammer everyone, saying they are not doing enough on housing, but then when they start to deliver, say they are doing too much or doing the wrong thing, as though there were a magic, easy, alternative formula. I do not believe there is one.

I will vote in support of confidence in the Minister, our colleague. I will do that in the determination that in the next two years of this Government we will deliver the housing our people need and we will deliver the change, particularly in how we see public housing. We will build back into the centre and build communities. This is still ringing in my ears from hearing about the Aylward family.

We deliver community when we deliver good housing, and we are determined to do that.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

Sinn Féin does not have confidence in Deputy Darragh O'Brien as Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the Opposition in this Dáil does not have confidence in the housing Minister and, more important, the people do not have confidence in him. How could they have confidence in a housing Minister who, with a straight face, says we do not have a housing emergency, or in a Minister who has turned to denial when the consequences of his failures are writ large in the everyday lives of people who, despite doing everything right, still cannot put a secure, affordable roof over their heads?

It has been three long years since the most recent election and the Taoiseach said his would be the Government to fix housing. He sang that from the rooftops. He has spent those years telling us housing is the number one priority for the Government. If that were true, we should have seen real action, ambition and urgency from the Minister, but we have not seen those things. We have abject failure from a tired Government and a housing Minister clearly out of his depth. The Minister has simply recycled the types of policies that got us into this mess in the first place, putting the interests of big developers, wealthy investors and corporate landlords ahead of those in housing need every time. Of course, this Minister is just the latest in a long line of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael housing Ministers wedded to the belief that in the end, the market will resolve the emergency, and it is the people who live with the dire consequences of that approach, namely, record house prices, record rents and record homelessness. That is the reality of the Government's housing legacy and it is Deputy O'Brien's legacy as housing Minister.

The Taoiseach gaslighting Opposition Deputies, the Tánaiste telling desperate young people that the grass is not always greener, and mindless, delusional, self-pitying guff cannot disguise that fact. You would imagine that when faced with such a social catastrophe, the Government should respond with ambitious social and affordable housing programmes. The Government has been told repeatedly that large-scale public housing is the answer - only this week, the ESRI restated that reality - but we get housing targets so out of kilter with the gravity of the emergency that the Minister's own officials have rung the alarm bell. We have targets set and targets missed, deadlines set and deadlines missed. That is the performance of the Minister amid the most serious housing emergency in the history of the State.

A common refrain from the Government, reiterated by the Taoiseach and the Minister, is that housing cannot be resolved overnight. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have had more than a decade to resolve housing and they have succeeded only in making things worse. Not alone has the housing emergency robbed people of the ability to put a roof over their heads but now it is impacting education, healthcare and jobs and investment, areas vital to Ireland's progress, prosperity and success. Teachers and healthcare workers throughout Ireland are struggling to find affordable housing, schools and hospitals are struggling to recruit and retain staff, and schoolchildren and patients are the ones paying the price. As a result of Government failure, many teachers and nurses have simply given up. We are now losing them to the chance of a better life abroad. Business organisations now tell us the lack of a coherent direction from the Government on housing is turning off investors. Reports from chambers of commerce in counties such as Waterford contain case studies of people turning down good jobs with good salaries because they cannot find an affordable place to live. The Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment has himself admitted that the housing crisis has placed the regional enterprise plan in real jeopardy.

There we have it: a housing emergency, with healthcare, education and investment in jobs affected, and it goes on and on. This contagion has happened because successive Governments have stood back and hidden behind excuses. First, the then Government could not fix housing because of the international financial crisis and the crisis here designed by their good selves. Then it was Brexit, then it was the pandemic and now the Government says it cannot fix housing because of the inflationary crisis. People are not naive. We all know these developments brought challenges - for sure - but those were challenges to be met with ambition and determination, not difficulties to be hidden behind by a Government to cop out of its responsibilities. The common denominator in this never-ending housing crisis is the presence of a Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael-led Government with a Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael housing Minister. An entire generation has come of age listening to those parties' jaded excuses and broken promises. They are sick of a Government talking about the construction of houses they will never be able to afford-----

Deputy Cathal Crowe

Will they all get a house like the Deputy's?

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald

-----and sick of walking past fancy apartments they will never live in. So, locked out of affordable housing and of opportunity by the policies of the Government, our young people now look to the airports and to life in Toronto, Boston or Sydney. We are now losing again our greatest resource, another generation raised for export. Forced emigration is back with us, not because of fear, famine or recession but because of the housing emergency, because Deputy O'Brien has been a housing Minister for more of the same and because Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael refuse to change. Our people need change like never before and nowhere is this more urgent than in the area of housing.

Let me be clear: this emergency and catastrophe does not have to be this way. I believe, indeed I know, that with the right policies, housing can be fixed. I believe that the homes our people need can be delivered and that we can give this generation the chance to build a good life here in Ireland, but that means the largest social and affordable housing programme the State has ever seen. It means cutting rents by putting one month's rent back into tenants' pockets and banning rent increases for at least three years, backed up by a far more ambitious tenant in situ scheme. It means a real strategy for bringing thousands of vacant and derelict homes back into use. It means an emergency plan to reduce the numbers of people and families presenting as homeless and speed up people's exit from emergency accommodation. These are the ambitious actions our people need. That is what a Sinn Féin-led Government would deliver.

Ba mhór an tubaiste í feidhmeannas an Teachta Darragh O'Brien mar Aire Tithíochta, Rialtais Áitiúil agus Oidhreachta. Is é an oidhreacht atá aige ná na praghsanna tithe is airde riamh, na cíosanna is airde, an líon is mó daoine gan dídean agus glúin imithe thar lear. Tá an géarchéim tithíochta chomh scaipthe anois go bhfuil sé ag cur isteach ar chúram sláinte, ar oideachas agus ar an ngeilleagar. Is leor sin. Caithfidh an tAire imeacht agus ba cheart don Rialtas teipthe seo a mhálaí a phacáil leis. Tá olltoghchán ag teastáil uainn.

The Minister has been in office for two and a half years. That is two and a half years too long because on every level by which we might judge the performance of a housing Minister, he has failed to get the job done. In any other job or walk of life, he would have been sacked by now. He needs to go. Nevertheless, this goes far beyond one Minister. The longer Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are in power, the worse the housing crisis will get. Housing was the test for the Government, and three years on from the election, it has failed that test spectacularly. The housing crisis is now so bad it is undermining our health system, our education system and the economy while also pushing another generation of young Irish people to emigrate. Our people simply cannot afford for this mess to go on any longer.

Not only do we need a change of housing Minister, but we need a change of government. We need a general election.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Yesterday, I had a phone conversation with an incredibly distraught family in County Kildare. Their son Wayne is sleeping tonight in a tent in County Meath. Wayne suffers from very extreme mental health challenges in his life and he has been homeless for about two years. Since I and my colleague Deputy O'Rourke have been working with this family, we have found that there is simply no emergency accommodation either in Meath or in Kildare that meets this very vulnerable man's needs. The real concern of the family is not just the impact on his health. Given the temperatures on our streets this week, this young man's life is at risk. I do not say that as an idle throwaway comment. Over the last two days we have read newspaper reports of a young woman who had been sleeping rough in my constituency in Clondalkin and who tragically died at the weekend.

Why is this happening? The answer is very straightforward. It is happening because the Government's housing plan is failing. It is happening because the policies the Taoiseach and the man beside him have been implementing for six years are failing. Let us look at the plan. Social and affordable housing targets are way below what is needed and they are not being met year on year. Homelessness is at levels we never thought possible. The current Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage called for his predecessor to resign when homelessness was approaching 10,000. Today, it is 11,500 men, women and children on his watch.

While the Taoiseach will deflect and claim it is always somebody else's fault, he should read Friday's ESRI report. It states two very simple things. It states that the plan the Taoiseach so eloquently celebrated only moments ago will not meet its own targets over the medium term. The ESRI has called on the Government to implement the very policy proposals we have been outlining for years: to dramatically increase direct State investment in social and affordable homes; take real action on vacancy; use new methods of building construction; and take action on land management. These are things the Government talks about doing but never does.

Until recently, every time a Government Member spoke, they told us of increases in planning permissions, commencements and new homes. That is not what the data now indicate. Every major report for months has shown that commencements are down, planning permissions are down and next year's and the following years' targets will not be met. I do not know how the Taoiseach can stand here and blame anybody in the Opposition for the failure of him and his Government's housing plan over the past six years. Shame on him.

I say to the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, that the level of frustration and anger we feel is not only because we have a disagreement on policy. It is because of the real human stories we hear week in and week out from the victims and survivors of the Government's housing policy who come to us for help. That is why everybody on this side of the House will reflect on those. Let us be very clear: despite the Taoiseach's misdirection and misrepresentation and despite his blaming of everybody else, his plan, his Minister and his Government are failing. That is why Wayne's life is at risk tonight.

I make no apology for saying I have no confidence in the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. It is nothing to do with the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, as a person. It has to do with the policies that he and the Government have been pursuing for years. They caused this crisis. They are making this crisis worse. Only a change of government, a change of Minister and a change of housing plan will allow us to finally bring about an end to the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael housing catastrophe.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Tánaiste is sharing time with the Minister of State, Deputy Butler.

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Deputy Leo Varadkar)

This motion of confidence was triggered by a motion of no confidence from People Before Profit. The People Before Profit Members know that their motion had no chance of being passed and would not build a single house or house a single other family. Its purpose was to embarrass and to personalise what is a deeply important political and societal issue. The time could have been used to introduce legislation on housing which might have become law but it was not.

Deputy Paul Murphy

The Government votes it down every single time.

Deputy Leo Varadkar

This vote will serve only to demonstrate that the Government has a clear working majority. We will move on in the next hour or so and get back to the important work of government; taming inflation, helping families with the cost of living, building homes, creating jobs and investment, taking climate action and providing equal opportunities for all our nation's children.

For a moment we should reflect on what life would be like if People Before Profit-Solidarity took the reins of government. For one thing we would still be under lockdown, pursuing a zero-Covid policy as the Taoiseach pointed out.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

The mask slips now.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Thousands died. It is not funny.

Deputy Leo Varadkar

People Before Profit's policy states that it is critical that we break immediately from the failed living-with-Covid strategy and implement a strategy based on elimination - the Chinese approach. This would have our economy in shutdown for a third Christmas. Construction sites would be abandoned and we would deprive people of their basic liberties for far too long. Fewer houses would have been built in the past year under People Before Profit, if any would have been built at all. I accept that a left-wing government would mean radical change - radical change for the worse for the vast majority of people. It would involve a self-defeating retreat from Europe and the world in pursuit of an ideological experiment that has brought misery and oppression to every country that has tried it.

I acknowledge that we have much more work to do, especially on housing, but the Government has helped our economy and society emerge strong from Brexit, Covid and the war in Ukraine. A record number of people are in work in Ireland at the moment. Trade and investment are at record levels. Notwithstanding inflation and rising incomes, we are generating budget surpluses due to prudent management of the public finances. We are using that money to help families and businesses with rising energy costs.

I know the Government needs to do much more on housing in the next two years. It needs to be a whole-of-government approach and it will be. It is a crisis that cuts across all age groups and one that demands results as well as actions. The no-confidence motion was heavy on analysis but light on solutions. There was not even one proposal as to how we could build houses more quickly. It is easy to invent slogans and raise targets but much harder to design and execute solutions. In Housing for All we have a plan that is thought through with a series of actions that complement one another.

We are providing grants to help people renovate old buildings and breathe new life into them, thus creating new homes in towns, villages and rural areas throughout the country. Well over 35,000 first-time buyers, singles and couples have benefited from the help-to-buy scheme and we have extended the scheme for another two years. We are helping thousands of first-time buyers to bridge the gap between their deposit and the mortgage they can get, and the price of a new home through the first home scheme. Some 16,000 individuals, couples and families have bought their first home in the past year. That is the highest in 15 years and we want it to be higher still. These people would not have been helped to buy if those in People Before Profit had their way. They want to take away the help-to-buy scheme and they do not believe in the first home scheme. They want a State-sponsored rent-for-life model of housing, not one based on homeownership.

Our mission for the remainder of this Government is to turn the corner on housing for everyone - renters, first-time buyers, those experiencing homelessness and those in need of more suitable accommodation. Our mission is to restore the social contract and to make homeownership affordable for the many again. We will build more houses and apartments and get more people living in suitable, affordable accommodation. We will build even more social housing because it benefits everyone. It takes people off the housing list, frees up private rental properties for others and puts downward pressure on rents and house prices.

We should not forget that 8,000 or 9,000 new social homes will be provided this year, which could be the highest in one year in the history of our State. People hark back to the 1970s, 1980s, the 1920s, the 1940s and the 1960s, periods when they believe the State was building more social housing; that is not the case. Through local authorities, approved housing bodies and other mechanisms, we are providing more social housing than has been the case for a very long time. We will also scale up our cost-rental programme as the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, mentioned.

I want to finish by paying tribute to the Minister, Deputy O’Brien. I know him since our days on Fingal County Council in the 2000s. We both got elected to this House in 2007 but I have only had the chance to work closely with him since 2020 when this Government was formed. I know him to be a tireless worker, pleasant and approachable, and always available to take a phone call. He is a good man, a man who cares, and a man who is doing everything he can to turn this situation around. He played an instrumental role in the programme for Government negotiations after the general election, helping to form this historic three-party coalition, while others in the Opposition barely even tried to put together an alternative and organised a range of public meetings instead. Tough as it is, Darragh did not hesitate in taking on the role of Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and he, like all of us, has more to do. I know he will be undeterred by tonight’s motion and will be back at his desk this evening working on how we can shift the momentum on housing and help people through this difficult winter.

I commend this motion to the House.

Minister of State at the Department of Health (Deputy Mary Butler)

The construct of the no-confidence motion put forward by Solidarity-People Before Profit leads us here today. This is a motion that is disingenuous and wide of the mark. The fantasy it purports is of the removal from office of one of our most capable Ministers one year into a ten-year strategy, which has seen some 28,000 units built, which is a fact and is not fiction, and is the highest number built since 2008. There are more than 16,000 first-time buyers, which is also a fact and is not fiction, and it is also the highest number since 2008. The idea is that this motion will somehow magically solve our housing challenges. Those supporting the motion took to the airwaves over the weekend to engage in their usual populist sloganeering, fighting the need for fundamental change. Are Solidarity-People Before Profit seriously suggesting that to increase supply as quickly as possible, we should stop what we are doing, which is implementing the single most ambitious housing plan in the history of the State with unprecedented levels of multi-annual funding, and start all over again?

Let us talk about what is happening in Waterford under Housing for All. Should we stop the repair and lease scheme, under which 71 residential housing units for older people have been delivered in the former St. Joseph’s Convent, which is inner-city living for inner-city people, appropriate to their needs and with the wraparound supports those people need? The completion date for this project is in the first quarter of 2023. Let us talk about affordable purchase delivery at Mount Neil, Carrickpherish, where there are 32 affordable purchase houses with a completion date of the first quarter of 2023. Deerpark, Williamstown, has 25 affordable houses with a completion date of the fourth quarter of 2022. Summerfields, Kilbarry, has 62 affordable units in two phases, both of which are to be completed in the first quarter of 2023. Let us talk about price. The projected sale price will be between €214,000 and €243,000 per affordable unit. That is delivery, that is Housing for All, and that is what is happening the length and breadth of the country. It may not be happening quickly enough but it is happening.

The Opposition continues to call for a general election and for a new government to solve the housing crisis. In reality, many of the Opposition parties shirked the challenge of office in the wake of 2016 and 2020-----

Deputy Peter Burke

Hear, hear.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Build houses for the people.

Deputy Mary Butler

-----and they will do so again.

Deputy Peter Burke

Correct.

Deputy Mary Butler

Solidarity-People Before Profit has voted against every major piece of constructive housing legislation brought forward by the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, and has produced no serious alternatives. Its Members voted against the first ever Affordable Housing Bill, the Land Development Agency Bill, which aimed to build social and affordable houses on State land, and important planning legislation. They opposed the help-to-buy scheme, the first home scheme and the vacancy grant scheme. The list is endless. That party should give the people more credit. The electorate will not be fooled by its baseless sloganeering and populism.

We are here today when we could be spending a great deal more important time bringing forward necessary legislation. I support the Minister, as I know do all my colleagues on this side of the House, and I thank him for the endless and tireless work he is doing.

It is about time that we got real and realised houses are being built throughout the country. I endorse the motion.

Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn

I have no confidence in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government to tackle the housing crisis. For ten years, from 2011 to 2021, we have had a lost decade in my home county of Donegal. There has been almost zero public housing built on public lands. Instead, the Government forces thousands of families into private rental accommodation and, of course, that takes us to a very significant increase in the cost of rent in Donegal which people just cannot afford. Families are emigrating to Australia and Canada, not because they do not have work but because they cannot afford to put a roof over their heads. The dream of owning their own homes is not attainable. That is the story throughout all of Ireland and is not unique to Donegal.

What makes this worse is the defective concrete blocks crisis. We have a perfect storm in Donegal. We have all of the elements of the housing crisis we have in the rest of the State, and then this defective blocks crisis. The Minister knows very well these families had to have an uprising after the disgraceful and discredited 90-10 scheme. Twice they came to Dublin in very significant numbers, where 20,000 were estimated to be present at the second protest. These were very significant numbers from Donegal, Mayo, Clare and the west. The responsibility was on the Minister and his Government to deliver a scheme that gave them justice. These are traumatised families, people whose lives have been destroyed and who are victims of the scandalous system of regulation of the construction industry in this country. They are victims.

I will never forget the campaigners in the Public Gallery last July. They were absolutely distraught. They were betrayed. They had engaged in good faith with the Government to arrive at a scheme which was just and fair. They wanted 100% redress. They had proposals that would have cost the Government and the State nothing and which made complete sense. They had 80 amendments but the Minister ran the legislation through because he said it was urgent to have a scheme which people could work with. Here we are now, almost at Christmas, and we still do not have a scheme and it is still not in place.

What we have, however, is the spectacle of a Government party Senator making completely outrageous comments in the other House last week, attacking the traumatised families and the victims and talking about a good scheme which nobody in Donegal believes in. It is no wonder, when you hear his comments, that we can see the failure of the Government.

It is not just a matter of the Minister himself. I have no confidence in Fine Gael and in Fianna Fáil to do what is right by our people when it comes to housing based on lived experience.

Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh

It was said the Minister is working hard, and we are not disputing that, because I do not really know. What I do know is that it is absolutely not working for the people in Mayo. The Government says it is doing its best. The Government designed the system that is not working, in the form of the housing assistance payment, HAP, the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and everything else, and by privatising the very thing people need, which is their shelter and the roof over their heads. This area was privatised under the Government and it must now own that decision.

I spoke to my son the other day. He named all his friends on the local football team - some of the Members present know what football team that is - and said it is very unlikely that they will be able to field a team next year because they will have to emigrate. So many young people are forced to emigrate because they do not have a roof over their head.

The great tragedy for the Minister is that he and the people sitting beside him do not even realise this. They do not realise how bad the emergency is. Some of the Members there are smiling, and that is just absolutely shocking.

Deputy Matt Carthy

Hear, hear.

Deputy Pearse Doherty

Hear, hear.

Deputy Thomas Gould

I have nothing against the Minister personally but I have something against his policies and plans because they have not worked. He has been in office for two and half years and I have listened to everyone describe all that the Government has done. I will tell this Government about families. A lady contacted me, a mother and grandmother, who cannot close the door of her bedroom because she has had to put another bed in there to put her grandchild in because her daughter has nowhere to live.

I know another lady who does not smoke or party and works hard. She has a lovely home but has received a notice to quit. In April, she and her four-year-old daughter will be homeless. That is why we have no confidence in the Minister. His plans do not work. The Taoiseach and the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, spoke about facts or fiction. In Cork, in January 2000 Fianna Fáil councillors voted against social housing on the Skehard Road. That is a fact.

An Ceann Comhairle

Can we have a little order, please, and less shouting? I call Deputy Cian O'Callaghan.

Deputy Brendan Howlin

I think you will find it is-----

An Ceann Comhairle

Mea maxima culpa.

Deputy Ged Nash

Housing is the foundation on which a decent and functioning society is built. Precarious housing leads to precarious lives. For this and the previous Fianna Fáil-supported Government's abject failure on housing, the citizens of Ireland and our society and economy will pay a severe price. I do not want to be flippant or in any way dismissive given the seriousness of the crisis we now face but, quite frankly, I have more faith and confidence in Santa Claus than I do in the Government to fix the housing crisis.

The housing catastrophe we are experiencing is on Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. We have seen seven years of wasted prosperity and two failed plans to build the private, public, voluntary and affordable homes we need. We have a rental market in chaos. Home ownership is beyond the grasp of many people who are educated and skilled and work hard for a living. Funds are competing with first-time buyers and councils, soaking up good homes off the plans. To our eternal shame, this Christmas 11,000 people, including children, are paying the ultimate price. They are homeless.

By any objective measurement, the Minister's plan is failing. In any job, the basic metric should be whether things are going better than when the person first took on the job. They manifestly are not. They are, in fact, getting worse. Unfortunately, the Minister holds some records, not the kind he is likely to pin to the wall. We have the highest rents ever recorded. We have the record for the highest house prices and the highest numbers of people who are homeless. In life and in business, when one is in a job and the plan is not working, one either steps down or changes the plan. One has the humility to change the plan. The Minister is prepared to do neither. For that, this Government will pay a heavy price.

These are not just political charges that we expect to see in the Chamber in the course of our business. Rather, it is the harsh, cold truth. The truth is that the numbers are going in only one direction. The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, referred to Waterford earlier and did so selectively. In Louth the reality is that house prices have gone up by 7% in the past year. There is planning permission in place for 11,000 new homes, but only 1,282 are still under construction or expected to be completed this year. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic and before the Minister's plan, there were 1,076 completions. That was before Housing for All, yet we still say that Housing for All is a success. Just over 10% of all permissions in place and a fraction of what is needed to house people is being built this year. There have been 41% fewer permissions granted across Ireland in the third quarter of this year than in the same period of 2021. They are not my figures; they are figures from the CSO.

Rents are up 13%, if people can find a place at all. The reality for the people I represent is ten to 12 years on the housing list. That is the reality of life in Louth and the lived experience for too many across the country in 2022. Yet, the Government still sticks to a plan that is not working, indifferent to all of the warning signs from the Opposition and independent experts.

Housing for All has many of the fundamental design flaws of Fine Gael's Rebuilding Ireland, a plan that Fianna Fáil, in terms of confidence and supply, supported. There was a massive over-reliance on private developers to solve a problem that only the State has the scale, authority, mandate, capacity and resources ultimately to crack. Even as developers, in particular apartment developers, make it clear that they do not have the finance and are getting out of the game, the Government still sticks to its Housing for All plans and metrics and fails to change tack fundamentally to wrap up what we need to do, namely build social and affordable homes on publicly owned land by local authorities.

When supply in the private market slows, the Government looks for scapegoats. That is what is happening. Residents' associations are using their constitutional right to take a judicial review, for example, a right the Government now wants to deprive certain citizens and bodies of. There is a rush to reform - I use that term advisedly - An Bord Pleanála, a body badly in need of reform but not in the rushed way the Government plans. The Government wants to limit Part 8 powers for local authority members and local authorities more generally. This sounds to me like a solution in search of a problem, if I ever saw one. We all saw this coming. We knew that putting most of our eggs in the private sector basket was a Hail Mary strategy. That is why the Labour Party, in our costed budget launched last September, said that we should spend an extra €1.5 billion on public housing next year and scale up ambition on cost rental. The truth is that anything positive and progressive the Minister might have done on his watch in terms of housing was done because he had to be carried, kicking and screaming, and led by the Opposition to do it.

I refer to the winter eviction ban, something the Government simply refused to introduce. It was dragged kicking and screaming to introduce it this year. It introduced an increase to the income threshold for social housing, restrictions on Airbnbs and the tenant in situ scheme, which has worked well, where it has worked, for HAP tenants who are at risk of homelessness and landlords who are selling up. The Government increased stamp duty on buying multiple units in housing developments.

In all of those circumstances, the Minister and his ministerial colleagues had to be dragged kicking and screaming by the Opposition to do the right, practical, pragmatic and constructive thing. We in the Labour Party are doing our best to be constructive with the Minister, but he is sometimes making that very difficult. It is his policy that we have a problem with, not him.

The Minister will survive today's vote because the Government has the numbers and this is a numbers game. However, the plan should not survive this vote. The very least the Minister should do is have the humility to change his plan. It is a plan that is not working. He should listen to the constructive proposals being provided by the Opposition today. The Minister must change his plan.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan

It is notable how little time the Government has spent defending its record on housing. Instead, it has used most of the time to talk about any other issue or attack the Opposition. That says a lot. Someone who contacted me yesterday said, regarding the motion of confidence in the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage:

I am 45 in January and I am living back in my childhood bedroom. I have zero chance of ever getting a home of my own. I'll be homeless when my parents pass. I work and have two children, but I cannot afford to rent anywhere. Homelessness numbers will only rise daily.

There is no doubt that when it comes to ensuring people can access housing they can afford, the Government and Minister are failing terribly. Deputies from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party who are voting confidence in the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage are backing a Government with the worst record of any in the history of the State on housing. They are voting confidence in rents, house prices and homelessness at record levels. They are voting confidence in a housing system where rents have never been so unaffordable. Rents are now much higher than mortgage payments and have increased by a staggering 85% since 2010 compared to an average increase across the European Union of just 18% in that time.

They are voting confidence in a Minister presiding over a situation where there are now 11,397 people living in homeless emergency accommodation. In the past year, homelessness has increased by 29% and child homelessness by a shocking 38%. Some 3,480 children will spend this Christmas in emergency accommodation. They are voting confidence in a Minister who is failing people in their 20s and into their 30s and beyond who are still living in their childhood bedrooms. An entire generation feels left behind and simply wants to be able to get on with their lives, move out and be independent. A generation is giving up hope of ever being able to afford somewhere to live and is asking themselves if emigration is the only option.

They are voting confidence in a crisis in our schools with teacher shortages and a crisis in healthcare with shortages of key workers caused by the housing disaster. There is a crisis across all sectors of Irish society where positions cannot be filled as people cannot find somewhere affordable to live.

They are voting confidence in a rental system full of loopholes and get-out clauses exploited by landlords. Rent regulation excludes large parts of the country, leaving renters subject to massive rent increases and a system that allows landlords to carry out mass evictions of renters, as is happening in Tathony House, Rathmines and other locations.

They are voting confidence in a collapse in levels of homeownership among adults of prime working age and in a Government that promotes build-to-rent so heavily that only a minority of new-build homes are available to people to buy on the open market.

They are voting confidence in a Minister who never misses an opportunity to use more and more public money to provide subsidies for developers and a Government that is now spending more than €1 billion a year on long-term leasing sweetheart deals and other rent subsidies that push up rents, making them ever more unaffordable. They are voting confidence in a Government that is somehow leaving millions of euro allocated to build new homes unspent, a Government whose capital underspend in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage was €702 million at the end of November and a Minister who has reallocated elsewhere €337 million that was earmarked to build new local authority homes this year. How is that possible in the middle of a housing disaster?

Government party Deputies supporting the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage are voting confidence in a decline in the number of new homes getting built, with commencement notices for new homes 14% down on last year. They are voting confidence in a Government that allows developers to sit on planning permissions, hoard land and drip-feed housing supply to ensure the prices of homes become ever more unaffordable. There are 80,000 planning permissions around Ireland that are not activated.

Deputies supporting the Minister are voting confidence in a Government that has failed to tackle the shortage of skilled construction workers and failed to encourage enough apprenticeships in key construction trades. The number of apprenticeships in bricklaying is just 31% of the 2006 number, while the number of apprenticeships in plastering is just 17% of the 2006 number.

Deputies supporting the Minister are voting confidence in a Minister interested more in spin than in delivering the homes people need. They are voting confidence in a Government that forever tells us what it is going to do about housing in the future but cannot stand over the record of what it has done. They are voting confidence in a Minister that keeps missing the targets he has set himself on delivery of affordable, cost rental and social homes. They are voting confidence in a Government that is congratulating itself that 28,000 new homes will be completed this year when even the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage admits we need at least 42,000 new homes each and every year. Deputies who back the Minister are voting confidence in a Government that has blown the chance to borrow billions at historically low interest rates to invest in building the tens of thousands of public homes we need and a Government that has failed to make the most of the suspension of the EU fiscal rules to invest in much-needed social and affordable homes.

There may well be a majority in this Dáil that will vote confidence in the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, but they should make no mistake that, outside in the real world, where people are paying higher and higher rents, living in constant fear of becoming homeless and worrying if they will ever be able to afford a place of their own that they can call home, there is no confidence in this Minister or in this Government on housing. There is only despair, a lack of hope and the constant worry of how this housing disaster is impacting people's children and families and across society. That is what we must change.

Minister for Finance (Deputy Paschal Donohoe)

I will vote confidence in the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, this evening, and not just because of his incredible dedication to his role, his resilience, and the effort he puts into making a difference to all that this Government wants to do better. I will vote confidence in him not just because of those qualities, which I see regularly. I will vote confidence in him because of the difference I see him make, including in my constituency and my part of Dublin.

A list is not the most attractive part of any speech, particularly in a debate like this, but the following is a list that must go on the record of the Dáil this evening. It is a list of new homes, a list of differences being made, and a list of examples of delivery of Housing for All in which the Minister is playing a critical role: Sean Foster Place, 30 homes; Dominic Street, 70 homes; O'Devaney Gardens, 56 homes; Dorset Street, 63 homes; St. Finbar's Court, 46 homes; and Infirmary Road, 38 homes. They are not homes being delivered by some unbridled free market, to which Deputy McDonald made reference earlier. They are homes being built by Dublin City Council and into which families and tenants who need homes are being moved. I experience and see the same pressure, to which many Deputies have made reference, in our citizens who need more homes and in those who come to our clinics worried about their rent or about where they will live. The lived experience to which Deputies refer, which we on this side of the House experience as well in our clinics and in the work we do, is also to a degree matched by the reality of the homes I see being built and the families and the tenants who are moving into them.

Deputy Thomas Gould

The only problem is-----

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Gould, please.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

I am only getting going. Let me get into some of the other homes being delivered. Let me talk about the homes that are in planning at the moment: 124 homes on Constitution Hill-----

Deputy Thomas Gould

The Minister is Santy Claus.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

-----and 92 homes in Matt Talbot Court. Let me talk about the work our approved housing bodies are doing: Ellis Court, 22 homes; Connaught Street, 20 homes; Railway Street, 47 homes; North Great Charles Street, 52 homes; and Halston Street, 12 homes. For every home I have listed this Government wants to see more built and is determined to make a difference, but those are homes that are being built, are in the planning process or are funded and will happen in the lifetime of this Government because of Housing for All and because of the work of the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien.

Deputy Thomas Gould

How many homeless people are there in the Minister's constituency?

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

Let me tell the House just how hollow the Sinn Féin claims are this evening. Its Front Bench spokesperson, Deputy Ó Broin, cannot even bother to be here for the debate this evening. Where are the Sinn Féin Deputies?

Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn

He is on the radio, if the Minister must know.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

Was he elected to the radio?

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

Is that how little confidence Sinn Féin has in its own policies that its own spokesperson will not be here this evening to make the claim for it?

Deputy Seán Crowe

There are more Shinners than Fine Gaelers here. That is for sure.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

I understand why they will not be here.

Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh

We are here. Turn around. Here, I will give you my glasses so you will be able to see us.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Ó Snodaigh, please.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

It is because the Sinn Féin answer to every difficulty this Government knows we face, to everything we need to make a difference to, is that we need to spend more and we need to do more. I listened very attentively to the speeches from Deputy McDonald and the housing spokesperson, when he graced us with his presence. What they said was that Sinn Féin would build more homes with more money. Is that all it has to offer?

Deputy Thomas Gould

It would be a good start.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

Sinn Féin makes the same case for every difficulty that is raised with it and every problem to which it seeks to make a difference.

Change is not promising everything to everybody. That is not positive change; it is cynicism. It is not change; it is populism. It is not policies; it is vitriol. What we need is a vision that can make a difference.

Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh

Fine Gael has made a difference since it has been in government all right.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

What I see in the work of the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, a colleague with whom I am privileged to serve, is-----

Deputy Seán Crowe

Where are all the Fine Gaelers?

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

-----a plan we know needs to do better and a plan we know needs to deliver more, and it will due to the Minister, and the commitment and work of this Government. In contrast, we have an Opposition, especially a Sinn Féin Opposition, which says it wants to build more homes and to deliver more rental accommodation when it has turned landlords, developers and banks into terms of abuse. That is what they are in the Opposition's lexicon.

Deputy Thomas Gould

You gave them a big bonus last week.

Deputy Paschal Donohoe

That is what they are in the Opposition's world. The people we need to build more homes, the people to whom we need to lend more to get those homes built, those we need to come back in to provide rental accommodation, in the Opposition's world, are terms of abuse and have been throughout this Dáil and before. When the Opposition then says it will spend more and build more, with what money will it do so, and from where? Is it the corporate tax revenues that everybody is warning us we should not spend?

Is it the corporate tax from the companies whose executives it does not want here and whose workers it wants to tax more and whose data centres it wants to run out of this country?

We know that much more needs to be done. We know we need to make a difference but in Housing for All and in the Minister we have a plan that is making a difference that is making a difference in my constituency, in my part of Dublin and is doing the same the length and breadth of this country.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

There are two speakers left and I do not know how they are dividing their time.

Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach (Deputy Jack Chambers)

I will try to get through it. People Before Profit-Solidarity tabled a no-confidence motion in the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, thinking it would get some easy media headlines with some cheap digs at this Government. It is a tired, cynical game, which is straight out of the Sinn Féin populist playbook. It is being seen for what it is: a stunt that will not see a single house built. It has no solutions, no ideas and no legislation. Housing and delivery on housing is the number one issue for this Government. The Minister and this Government have already introduced a raft of actions to increase supply and will produce more in the coming days. All in all, the Minister has passed 17 pieces of legislation over the past two years across areas as varied as the winter eviction ban to protect renters, new strategic approaches to delivery, enhancing affordability and 11 of those legislative items were completed this year alone. Just last night, I saw the Minister engaging with homeowners who were impacted by defects. I saw a Minister who is absolutely sincere, who understands the issues and is dedicated to seeing follow-through.

For people out there, I want to set out the fundamental difference in approach between this Government and the Opposition. People Before Profit-Solidarity and Sinn Féin want to pull the wool over the eyes of those seeking to buy their own homes. They do not want them to know that the State is now the biggest actor in housing when it comes to affordability and social housing.

Deputy Paul Murphy

It is not.

Deputy Mick Barry

A fact check was done on it by thejournal.ie.

Deputy Jack Chambers

They do not want to accept the scale of intervention with €400 billion in investment in a multi-annual multibilllion euro plan not seen in the history of the State. Sinn Féin proposed €2.8 billion a year in its submission to Housing for All and now it says that €4 billion is not enough. So, it is a case of more homes with less funding. How does that stack up?

Deputy Thomas Gould

The Government did not spend the allocation this year.

Deputy Jack Chambers

Sinn Féin has also proposed a tax credit for renters and proposed an outline cost of €300 million when it cost €600 million. Again an uncosted plan that is not credible. People do not accept the interventions by the Minister around protecting renters and around increasing supply and driving affordability of housing. They do not recognise that Part V has been increased to 20% or the progression of a residential land-zone tax, as well as a vacant homes tax. These are the facts rather than the ongoing rhetoric. They want to cut the legs from private supply at a time when every avenue must operate in tandem. Those who need housing right now want delivery not dogma.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are out of time.

Deputy Jack Chambers

That means a Land Development Agency, which many in the Opposition have voted against.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I have to interrupt the Minister of State. Deputy Matthews is next. There is less than two minutes left.

Deputy Jack Chambers

I will conclude now.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Matthews-----

Deputy Jack Chambers

There are 27,000 residential units this year and 8,000 social homes. I have full confidence in the Minister to see delivery.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Matthews has just been left with a minute and a half.

Deputy Steven Matthews

The housing crisis is the foremost challenge we face. I notice that most of the Opposition Front Bench is missing, including its spokesperson, deputy leader and leader. It is a pity they did not stay for the complete debate.

Deputy Matt Carthy

Where is the Deputy's leader?

Deputy Steven Matthews

We need to build thousands of houses.

Deputies

Where is the Deputy's leader?

Deputy Steven Matthews

I cannot speak with these interruptions. I hope the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will stop the clock.

(Interruptions).

Deputy Steven Matthews

That tenure mix will consist-----

(Interruptions).

Deputy Steven Matthews

I hope the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will add the time on for the constant interruptions. If the Opposition would care to listen to some of the facts and information, we need to revitalise our town centres and address dereliction and vacancy. The tenure mix will be private, social, affordable and cost rental, providing long-term secure tenancies at affordable rents in well-designed sustainable communities.

My party chose to go into government to make the decisions to enable us to deliver on the housing challenge, on cost rental and vacancies but others chose to sit it out; to claim to be concerned about climate but leave it to others to take the hits; to contribute nothing but criticism and slogans; to object to everything; to claim to be worried about the loss of nature but in their time-wasting call for no confidence, it has denied the opportunity for our leading Minister of State on nature and biodiversity, Deputy Noonan, to lead on the world stage at COP15. That is what it has done with this waste of time motion tonight.

Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire

It is the Government's motion

Deputy Steven Matthews

The Government, through the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has introduced a vast range of legislation to address these matters. The Land Development Agency Act, the Affordable Housing Act, the Maritime Area Planning Act and, very shortly, the marine protected areas legislation to protect and preserve -----

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Thank you.

Deputy Steven Matthews

There were continuous interruptions. I hope the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will allow me a little more time.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

There was a robust interchange.

Deputy Steven Matthews

We are currently carrying out the most significant piece of planning reform and improvement since the 1963 and 2000 Acts and that will deliver. We have introduced zoned-land tax and a vacant homes tax capturing the State land value uplift from zoning and town centres first as our leading policy.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy is way over time.

Deputy Steven Matthews

I have worked with the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and his team in the Custom House as Chair of the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage. I know first hand his commitment on housing and homelessness and the huge range of issues in his remit.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are way over time.

Deputy Steven Matthews

If any Member of People Before Profit wants to drop into the committee to actually learn about what is happening in the legislative process, I would be delighted to make time for him or her. However, having the right information would probably not suit their narrative.

I have confidence in the Minister to continue to deliver on critical issues for our country.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

For the voices coming from the Government benches, this was an 11-minute slot. I did not divide up the time. Thank you.

Deputy Steven Matthews

There were constant interruptions while I was trying to speak.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It was a robust interchange.

Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh

We were just addressing the Deputy's points.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are going back to Sinn Féin. This is a five-minute slot.

Deputy Sorca Clarke

Housing was a real test for this Government and almost three years from the general election, it has failed and failed spectacularly. Its inability and continued failures are so bad that they are undermining our health and education systems and are undermining our businesses, while pushing another generation to emigrate. Affordability has gone through the roof. Today a three-bedroom house in Edgeworthstown will set someone back €1,500 a month. That is in Longford, a county that did not qualify for an affordable housing scheme. In County Westmeath, it is €1,800 in Athlone for a two-bed, €1,600 in Mullingar where a so-called affordable housing scheme listed properties more expensive than 75% of similar properties on the market. I could go on and on. I could go on with the ever-growing list of young buyers pleading for help to get a home; the principal with a woodwork teacher living in their box room; the renting grandparent under notice to quit moving into their adult children's home. Yet during this time there was a Minister who was borderline gaslighting the public with statements that there was no housing crisis, that the plan is building momentum and that people just do not feel it yet as if it is somehow their problem and not the problem of failed policies. All the photo opportunities and glossy brochures produced by the Minister will not deflect from the cold hard fact that he is failing miserably. If he picks up a Goodbody Stockbrokers report or an ESRI report, it will show that commencements are down, planning applications are down and all the while there is a capital underspend. Is it any wonder that so many people across the country have never been more pessimistic about owning a home? The longer Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are in government, the worse this housing crisis is going to get.

Deputy Mairéad Farrell

It is incredible to hear the Taoiseach suggest that when he hears anger from the Opposition on the issue of housing, it is rehearsed anger. If I ever needed any more clarity of the Government's attitude towards housing and how it simply does not get it, it was from the Taoiseach here tonight. I heard the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, who is also missing, suggest that Opposition parties are engaging in divisory politics; that it is old versus young; urban versus rural. If this Government has done anything, it is to unite people in urban and rural areas and older and younger people all under the same issue of not being able to access secure and affordable housing. It is impacting the people in our cities and rural areas and it is even impacting people on our offshore islands. It is not just impacting young people. It is seriously impacting older people. I see people coming into my clinic in their 50s, 60s and 70s who cannot access housing. A man who is nearly 70 was paying over €1,000 extra over HAP. He knows that once he retires, he will not be able to afford that any more. There was a week in Galway city when six households were turned away from emergency accommodation. That resulted in six people having to live in their cars and three in tents. Coming up to Christmas, there is no room in the inn for Galway city homeless and there certainly are no wise men in this Government who are going to do anything about it.

Deputy John Brady

I have 11,397 reasons I have no confidence in the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. This is the number of homeless people who were in emergency accommodation in October. Many more are sleeping rough tonight on the streets of this capital and of towns right across the State. This winter, the past week of which has brought even more untold hardship, suffering and death on our streets, the housing emergency, crisis and debacle that the Minister oversees as the member of the Government responsible for housing is soul-destroying. Generations of ordinary people have been locked out of homeownership. Rents, which are among the highest in Europe, are leaching the lifeblood out of our young people. In the past 12 years, rents have risen by over 85% by comparison with the EU average of 18%.

My county, Wicklow, which has the highest rents in the country outside Dublin, has witnessed a year-on-year rent increase of 16.6%. Rents are rising at the highest rate since the height of the Celtic tiger era. This equates to an average cost of €1,846 per month for ordinary people to fork out in a crushing cost-of-living crisis. This is a measure of the Minister’s failure; a failure that continues to ruin the lives of many people right across the State. It is time for the Minister to go. In fact, it is time for the entire Government to go.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

Sinn Féin councillors are objecting to houses in Bray. What is that about? It is a total contradiction.

Deputy John Brady

Members of the Government are funding judicial reviews of major developments-----

Deputy Cathal Crowe

But Sinn Féin councillors are going out objecting all the time.

Deputy John Brady

-----in Delgany, Enniskerry and towns right across Wicklow.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

Sinn Féin councillors are closing down houses right across Wicklow. Eighteen houses did not go ahead because of its councillors.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Crowe-----

(Interruptions).

Deputy John Brady

They are funding judicial reviews that are holding up thousands of homes in Wicklow.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

Fictional figures. Serial objectors.

Deputy John Brady

Yes, that is what members of the Deputy’s Government are - serial objectors.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

There are only 15 members in the Government.

Deputy Cathal Crowe

The Deputy should look at the Sinn Féin councillors in Bray.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I will abandon this session if this continues. I understand the anger and robust debate, but this must not continue.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

People Before Profit’s no-confidence motion had nothing to do with the Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, as an individual. It had nothing to do with cynicism and certainly was not a stunt. Rather, it was a desperate attempt to force the Government to acknowledge its housing policies are failing thousands upon thousands of real human beings in the most terrible way. It is about more than 3,000 children who are going to spend Christmas in emergency accommodation, some for the second, third or fourth time. It is about the fact that 100,000 families and individuals are on housing waiting lists in desperate circumstances, waiting a decade or sometimes up to 20 years for a secure, affordable roof over their heads. It is about the fact that thousands of people are facing the imminent prospect of being evicted from their homes even though the Government claimed it protected them. It is about the fact that four Dublin city councils did not add a single new council house to the public housing stock in the first half of this year, despite the fact that we are facing an unprecedented housing crisis. It is about the fact that the Government has failed to spend €750 million when facing this absolute catastrophe affecting children, families and individuals, including workers, at the wrong end of this housing crisis. That is why we submitted our motion.

Of course, to ensure we could not present our alternative proposals, which we have done time and again, the Government tabled its own motion. This means People Before Profit has but six and a half minutes to make its case. If our motion had been allowed, we would have had 40 minutes. Instead, we have the cacophony of people standing up to say how wonderful Government policy is and how well it is working. That is typical of the manipulation and spin that occur when dealing with an absolute catastrophe facing families.

Let me give a couple of examples of those who really matter. Jacqueline and Richard, a couple in their 50s with two teenage children, rang me on Thursday bawling crying because they got a notice stating they will be in court in February, when there is supposed to be an eviction ban. They are to be thrown out of the house where they have lived all their lives. They are working people who have paid their taxes. Nothing the Government has done will protect them or provide them with a home. They are terrified they will be in a car. Jacqueline is terrified that Richard will literally not survive this.

Our motion was also about a woman of 55 who is on dialysis for nine hours per day. She submitted an application for housing priority on medical grounds last November but the authorities are still looking for additional medical information, without which they will not process it. It is about a 73-year-old man with a spinal condition who is sleeping on his daughter’s couch. Despite his situation, the council is looking for more information about his health. It is about a 59-year-old man with Alzheimer’s disease who has been in seven different housing assistance payment tenancies in nine years although doctors have said specifically that he needs a secure, affordable place where he will not be moving around. That is what is going on. These things have been said time and again to the Minister.

During the summer, we tabled a motion to reduce rents, just as we put forward Bills to do so. We introduced the right to housing Bill, a Bill to stop evictions where there is no fault or where people are being evicted on grounds of sale, use-it-or-use-it policies, and measures to establish a State construction company to accelerate the delivery of public housing on affordable land, but the Government voted against them all. Why? If we ponder the fact that Cairn Homes’ profit increased by 129% last year and Irish Residential Properties REIT, the biggest landlord in the country, is making a profit of 50% on every tenant, we will have some idea of what is really going on.

Deputy Mick Barry

Three and a half thousand children are forced to spend Christmas in emergency accommodation, some for the second Christmas, some for the third and some even for the fourth. It costs €20,000 per year to rent a house in Cork city and €25,000 per year in Dublin. The price of a house has gone up by more in one year than the annual wage of many a young worker. A generation of young people cannot afford to buy or rent and are forced to live at home with their parents or emigrate.

Could the Minister answer a couple of questions? Why, when apartment starts were down 29% in the three months up to October and housing starts are down 23%, does the Minister not step up public housebuilding and make a case for it to be key? Why does he not shut down the nonsense of gifting developers more tax breaks? Why did he appoint an individual to the board of the Housing Finance Agency when the Standards in Public Office Commission made a significant ruling against that person? I have no confidence that the Minister, the rest of the Government and the capitalist market will solve the housing crisis. They are all part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (Deputy Michael McGrath)

I support the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, and look forward to voting to express confidence in him this evening. I do so because I see every day the work he is doing. I know he absolutely cares about the people affected by the homelessness crisis, the people struggling with rents and the people who aspire to homeownership. I also know he cares about those who are now being placed in housing because of the massive increase in homebuilding the State is engaging in, those who are now benefiting from new cost-rental homes for the first time in the history of our State.

I know the Minister cares about all of those who are now applying for, and successfully achieving, affordable housing for the first time in this country in well over a decade. The motion put before us this evening, as has been said, will not build a single home. It is full of criticisms. It is about politics. It is about competition between the Opposition.

Deputy Bríd Smith

It is the Government's motion. Hello, it is your motion.

Deputy Michael McGrath

I work closely with the Minister every single day. He works harder than anyone in this House to address and tackle the housing crisis. That is the truth. He has secured an extra €11 billion for housing in the national development plan out to 2030. In 2016 the housing capital budget was €435 million. In 2020 it was €1.4 billion. Next year it will be €2.3 billion, added to by the Land Development Agency, and the work of the Housing Finance Agency. In 2016, 604 social houses were built in this country. The last Government increased investment and increased the number of homes that were being built. Last year there were more than 5,200 new direct build homes, in terms of social housing. When we add acquisitions and leases, more than 9,200 homes were added to the public housing stock despite Covid-19. The Minister has delivered a range of new affordable housing through measures that have been put in place, such as, a new affordable housing fund; a new affordable housing grant of €150,000 per unit for cost rental units; the extension of the help-to-buy scheme by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe; the Land Development Agency has now been put on a statutory footing; and we have a first-home shared equity scheme up and running. If they were to tell the truth, Opposition parties simply do not believe in home ownership. They have come up with affordable housing schemes where the applicants would never actually own the house. We have a rapidly growing population in Ireland. Despite all of the Opposition's attempts to portray Ireland as some kind of a failed State, why is it that people from all over the world want to come to our country to live, to build their lives and to build their careers? Since 2015, Ireland has had net inward migration every single year, long before the war in Ukraine and long before the international protection crisis. This year we will have net inward migration of more than 61,000 people. Ireland's population is up by more than half a million people since 2011. This underlines the scale of the challenge we face. The irony in your motion is-----

Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh

It is your motion.

Deputy Michael McGrath

-----that while you condemn capitalism-----

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

It is your motion.

Deputy Michael McGrath

-----you talk about developer led and you talk about market base. Your motion also laments the fact that there are indications that private supply is slowing and you do not seem to see the irony in that.

Deputy Paul Murphy

The market is not-----

Deputy Michael McGrath

The Opposition never talks about the hard yards, the issues that are actually involved in delivering housing supply, such as, the reforms to the planning system; access to affordable finance; the apprenticeship system; tackling materials inflation; land availability; and access to private capital. If we want to deliver 33,000 homes per year, and the Opposition says we need more than that, then we need at least €7.5 billion in private capital to complement what the State is doing. The truth is the Opposition is hostile to private investment and hostile to the market. The Opposition thinks we can just say we will build 20,000 social and affordable homes and it will happen just like that. The Opposition says it would spend all of the money we have. We have that money because we did not pursue the anti-enterprise policies advocated by the Opposition, because we did not oppose every EU treaty, and because we did not oppose every free-trade agreement this country signed up to. Were we to do that we would not have the resources the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and the Government are using to tackle this housing crisis in the best and most effective way we possibly can.

Deputy Bríd Smith

So we have the highest homeless figures ever. That is a great success.

Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (Deputy Roderic O'Gorman)

When this Government took office it was made clear that delivery on housing would be our number one priority. At a time of global upheaval, be that with Covid, the cost-of-living pressures, or the war in Ukraine, the Government has sought to deliver on that, led by the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. We did not, nor do we, underestimate the challenges involved, nor do we underestimate the awful impact the housing crisis has on so many of our citizens. This is why the Government is working to deliver on our commitment to provide social housing, to provide affordable housing, and to provide affordable rental. There cannot be any end to the challenge we face in housing until we see an increase in supply, and supply is now increasing. To the end of September, more than 55,000 homes were either commenced or completed. I see this in my own constituency. Only one month ago, the Taoiseach, the Minister, I and others, saw already under construction the first phase of the Church Fields development, built by Fingal County Council and funded by a huge capital investment secured by the Minister. That will deliver more than 300 social, affordable and cost-rental homes in the middle of my constituency. These positive developments are not just happening in Dublin West. Work has already commenced on the largest public housing scheme in the State, in Shanganagh, in Shankill in County Dublin. The Shanganagh development will deliver 597 social and affordable homes. The first of these will be the completed in 2024. Importantly, more than half of these homes will be cost rental. Cost rental is a viable new form of tenancy in Ireland that was introduced by this Government. A total of 900 cost-rental homes have been approved in Ireland in just over one year since the Affordable Housing Act was enacted, providing the basis for this new sector. By 2030 we aim to have 18,000 cost-rental homes in the State. The introduction of cost rental as a new form of tenure will be one of the most important legacies introduced by this Government.

Through managing the housing crisis we have, of course, had to manage the crisis created by the war in Ukraine and the real pressures provided in housing and services by the arrival of more than 71,000 people to our country. Throughout that, I recognise the work the Minister has done in supporting my Government and being a staunch voice in support of our Ukraine response, whether it be setting up community fora, resourcing a director of services for that response in every local authority across the country, mobilising rest centres, working on pledged properties, or working on the refurbishment of institutional buildings. On top of the huge challenges faced by his Department, and the huge challenges the Minister is rising to in delivering housing and responding to the crisis, he has assisted the huge work the Government is doing on Ukraine. I express my thanks to him. I know that work will continue with him in his role as the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

Deputy Barry Cowen

If I was to be politically brutally honest I would say that one of Fianna Fáil's mistakes in recent years was to extend the confidence and supply agreement beyond three years. It was probably compounded when we voted confidence in that Government's housing Minister and its housing policy. It did, of course, allow the Opposition the opportunity to portray Fianna Fáil as compliant and complicit in Fine Gael's and Labour's policies since 2011. As we all know, that simply was not the case.

Despite that misrepresentation, we emerged from the election as the largest party with a responsibility to form a Government. We sought to do so and to put in place a programme for Government, while the Opposition ran for the hills when this country needed to overhaul housing policy. That programme for Government prioritised housing. Fianna Fáil insisted on the portfolio of housing. Its responsibility to deliver on a need was offered and afforded to Darragh O'Brien. As Minister he has enacted 22 Acts to date, more than his three predecessors. As was said already by many here, we have record funding for Housing for All, affordable schemes when there was none, cost-rental schemes when there was none, first homes schemes when there was none, and a Land Development Agency that will build public housing on public lands, but the Opposition still opposed it. We extended the help-to-buy scheme, introduced the tax credit for renters, and increased the grant aid available for derelict houses from €50,000 to €80,000 in urban and rural areas. The Minister initiated a development land tax that has a use it, lose it or pay for it clause associated with it. Whether the Opposition likes it or not, the national target has been met. In my county of Offaly, for example, when councillors from all parties and none sought 470 solutions, they got 580. In Tullamore today 500 homes are being built. Have we it sorted and is it solved? Is it likely to be solved in the very near short future? No. We accept, acknowledge and appreciate that. What are we doing today? On the planning logjam, for example, which is unavoidable and is there for anyone to see, moves are afoot to ensure that at times of crisis and emergency Opposition parties and their supporters do not object to and hold up housing.

I just heard Deputy Mairéad Farrell mention the wise men and the time of the year that is in it.

I have listened especially to our colleagues from Sinn Féin and considering its performance in government in the North in recent years, it is akin to the same three wise men getting lost and blaming nobody but the camels.

Deputy Thomas Gould

Fianna Fáil should run a few candidates there and see how it gets on. The Deputy is all talk.

Deputy Dara Calleary

The Deputy is pretty good at that himself.

Deputy Thomas Gould

I am.

Deputy Louise O'Reilly

Tonight I have witnessed some uncomfortable Members on the Government benches and the lads all know what they have to do. They must defend their man or face an election. That is what has brought them in here because there could not be support for the record of this Minister on those benches. It is either that or the Government Deputies do not hold constituency clinics, answer the phone or look at their emails. If they did they would know what it is like for people out there and they would understand why we are opposing this motion of confidence.

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, said that he knows the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, cares but we are not talking about a compassion deficit; we are talking about a competence deficit. It is not personal; it is about policies. The Government's policies, as delivered by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, are failing on every measure. The Minister is responsible for the highest rents, house prices and levels of homelessness ever seen. He is quite the record-breaker and the evidence of this can be seen in all the parents who are saying goodbye to their adult children in Dublin Airport and in those who will spend their last Christmas with their kids as they head abroad in the new year.

Colleagues should not take my word for it; rather they should listen to what the Minister's constituents say. Breda says she was private renting for almost two-and-a-half years and the house was sold and the tenancy notice validated. She is currently couch surfing on her sister-in-law's sofa in Balbriggan. She is registered with Fingal County Council and has been accepted for social housing but she cannot find anywhere to live. She is going to viewings and doing everything she should but she is still sleeping on a sofa. It is not just individuals who are suffering but it is impacting businesses. Tommy Fanning, the head of strategic policy at IDA Ireland said that the lack of housing "is a major problem". It is not a compassion deficit, therefore; it is a competence deficit, which is why this Minister needs to go. While he is at it, he can take the rest of the Government with him.

Deputy Matt Carthy

The Leas-Cheann Comhairle might give me guidance on whether we should use the metric of the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, on what it says about the Government’s confidence in the Minister and his policies with the fact that neither the Taoiseach nor the Tánaiste could remain in this Chamber.

Deputy Michael McGrath

There are a lot more of us here than there are from the Opposition.

Deputy Matt Carthy

For all of the bluff and bluster from Government Deputies, they cannot hide from the plain fact that its housing policies and its Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage are failing.

Far from resolving the housing emergency, the Minister denies that there is an emergency at all. The emergency was not of the Minister's making, although his party played a starring role, but he has singularly failed to get to grips with it. On all the parameters that matter to real people, the figures do not lie. We have the highest levels of homelessness since records began and they are getting worse. We have the highest house prices on record and they are getting worse. We have the highest rents in the history of the State and they continue to soar. The Minister has established himself as the Harry Kane of Irish politics; missing targets and missing them wildly. The Minister has an advantage over Mr. Kane, however, because he simply moves the goalposts by setting targets that he knows go nowhere near the level of output that is required to resolve the daily crisis that is the lived housing reality of too many of our citizens.

The Members opposite know all of this but no doubt the Minister will receive the support of the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green Party Deputies this evening, with some of them probably holding out vain hope of a nod for a position as a Minister of State this Saturday. Make no mistake about it but were this motion to be decided by those trapped in the limbo of emergency accommodation, by Ireland's fleeced renters, by those on social housing lists waiting for years, with many more years of waiting to come, by young people desperately trying to buy their first home or by the thousands of others who have lost hope and have again scattered to the four corners of the world in search of a better life, then there would be no contest. It would be a clear and emphatic no-confidence vote in this Government. There would be no confidence in its failed housing policies or this Minister.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

I listened to the Taoiseach's speech and he excelled himself in his last week. Before he died the theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, wrote about the possibility of there being a parallel universe. The Taoiseach's speech represented a parallel universe to the experience of most people living in this country. It is clear that the measure of success or failure for a Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage is the provision of an adequate number of houses for their people. It is as simple as that. This must be done either through public provision or through a functioning market that can provide those houses. On that basis, the Government is failing severely. It is an incredible situation and it gives me no pleasure whatsoever to say that.

For this Government to have adequate housing, we need to build 50,000 homes every year for the next ten years and it is miles away from that. Even the target the Government set itself last year, of 28,000 homes, was missed. Therefore, this year the Government reduced the target by 5,000 homes. The most worrying and frightening aspect of this for most people is the current figures on commencement notices and the fact that they are significantly down and likely to remain significantly down for next year. There is a massive human and societal cost to what is happening. We have record homelessness, record local authority housing waiting lists, record rents and record house prices. How could we have confidence in a Government or Minister when that is the result of their work?

People are literally dying on the streets because of this in our towns and cities. Aontú has found out that more than 357 people have died on the streets of this capital alone in the last five years, an incredible figure and a national disaster, equivalent to a Boeing 747 crashing. That is just in this city; no other local authority in the State records the number of homeless people who die on the streets. I have asked for that to be done and it still has not been done, which is incredible.

We have young couples who are putting off having their children because they are living in a box room in their parents' homes. We have young parents who do not see their kids from one end of the week to the other because they are commuting three hours per day because they cannot afford a home close to where they work. We cannot get teachers, gardaí or nurses for our public services because they cannot afford accommodation on the wages they are on. Through all of this, we have a Minister who is not doing what is necessary.

We were the only State in Europe where housebuilding was closed for a full quarter during the Covid crisis. We are the only State that has not gotten to grips with the level of vacant homes in the country. It is incredible that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, has resisted putting a tax on empty homes for as long as he possibly could. Now there is potentially a vacant homes tax in the offing that is nowhere near significant enough to change the behaviour of those people who are sitting on those homes and watching the prices of those homes increase. We have 160,000 vacant homes according to the statistics. We recently put in a parliamentary question and it showed that 392 homes have applied for the vacant property refurbishment grant. That is an incredible and staggering figure when it is compared with the number of vacant homes there are.

I refer to the direct provision of housing and the fact that 11 local authorities failed to build a single local authority home in the first six months of this year. Three Dublin councils failed to build a single home in the first six months of this year. A total of 647 homes were built in the first six months of this year. That is an incredible response to the enormity of a housing crisis that is bearing down so heavily on people's shoulders. On the reforms it has proceeded with, the Government has been dragged kicking and screaming into implementing them. Airbnbs have been taking homes out of the long-term letting market for so long and it is only now that we are getting to grips with that. We have rent controls, evictions bans and the reform of REITs and institutional investors. Again, these reforms are glacial when they are needed the most, which frustrates me. This Minister is in reverse, he is following the same pattern of the previous Ministers and I cannot support him.

Deputy Peter Fitzpatrick

Deputy Darragh O'Brien took on the role of Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage just over two years ago and on the back of a global pandemic. The pandemic resulted in stalls in construction and the Minister has since had to deal with the triple crises of energy, cost of living and inflation. This is in addition to the war, which has affected the supply of material and labour as well as increasing the number of people seeking asylum.

These are all outside the Minister's control.

I acknowledge that planning permissions are down by 41%, the level of housing staff is down and homelessness figures are the highest we have seen. These are all relevant facts. However, another relevant fact is that the overall housing delivery target of 24,600 new homes will be exceeded this year. The first affordable purchase homes in more than a decade will be delivered this year. Hundreds of cost-rental tenants are now in safe and secure long-term rental homes, which did not exist a little over a year ago. The biggest overhaul of planning legislation in 20 years is being brought to Cabinet today.

Cancel culture is rife. I must point out that overhauling an entire Government is not the solution. What then? We scramble to replace a housing Minister or have a new Government. How will this help the people? How will this help solve the homeless problems? Starting from scratch involves going back to square one and being unwilling to wait any time for targets and goals to come to fruition. Goals take time and yes, while you can cherry pick low-hanging fruit for quick gains, long-term plans depend on everything falling into place. Unfortunately, the war has resulted in increased costs and increased migration, which have hindered development and put pressure on our housing system. The Minister has consistently acknowledged that not everyone is feeling this progress yet and that it will take time but progress is being made. The motion is simply opposition for opposition's sake.

The Opposition is saying that our housing system is broken thanks to successive failures of Government policy and they have reached breaking point on the Government's failure to deliver but it has not offered any solution. It has not raised any innovative ideas in debate in the Dáil. What we need are innovative ideas. We need to put our heads together. The Opposition is saying that we need a housing model that delivers housing from the State to meet the needs of people. How would this look? What do they propose? If they really wanted to help the people and not further their own agenda, they would put forward ideas.

Our political alliance does not come first; the people of Ireland must come first. I must hand it to the Minister because he is doing a good job and is open to hearing any innovative ideas such as when I proposed modular homes in the Dáil a couple of weeks ago. We have had numerous discussions on this and have since set a date for him to visit Dundalk and meet the developer. We need to stop playing political football and put our heads together to resolve homelessness and come up with innovative housing initiatives.

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Deputy Charlie McConalogue)

I rise to vote confidence in the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage because this is a Minister who is making a real impact in Government and has delivered an exceptionally radical plan in the Housing for All strategy. This is the most radical plan in the history of this State in terms of delivering housing. It has delivered 28,000 new homes this year, which is its first year of operation. This is the largest number of new homes built since 2008.

This motion is no more than a political stunt but it has been very valuable because no more than the Opposition motion of no confidence in the Government a few short months ago, this motion has shown up the vacuousness of the Opposition and its sheer lack of policy. Of course, Sinn Féin has been trumped here by People Before Profit, its future partner in a left-wing Government, because People Before Profit initially moved this motion. In her contribution, Deputy McDonald outlined how what we needed was not a motion of no confidence but an immediate general election, presumably so that she can go into government with People Before Profit and left-wing friends such as Deputies Bríd Smith, Pringle, Boyd Barrett and Paul Murphy to deliver and solve the housing problem for us. I presume Sinn Féin will not take any of the Rural Independents with them. It never mentions them at all. A coalition of the left is what it wants. We know what that would do to the great economy we have that enables us to invest in housing, but somehow Deputy McDonald thinks that is what is going to deliver and solve the housing crisis. We have another think coming.

I listened very carefully to Deputy Ó Broin, who is supposedly the housing guru not just for Sinn Féin but for this left-wing government. In his contribution, he said our housing targets are not big enough, the plan is failing and it will not meet its targets. He went on to make three key points, which are that we need real action on vacancy ignoring what the Government is doing on Croí Cónaithe. The second point he made was that we need action on land use, again ignoring the zoned land tax we introduced, the increased land value sharing legislation that came before Cabinet yesterday, the vacant property tax we introduced or indeed the new planning reform Bill that came before the Cabinet today. The latter is the biggest reform of housing policy, planning and development in the history of State brought forward by the Minister with our pioneering Attorney General Paul Gallagher, whose final week is this week. The third point he made was that we need real investment in social housing ignoring the fact that this year, the Government will deliver 9,000 social housing units, the largest ever amount in the State. Remember this is the man who wrote two books. I have not read any of them but listening to him today, you would not think he wrote them either. He finished off his great contribution by saying "shame on you" and then he walked out. That was representative of all we got from the rest of the Opposition tonight. All it did was define the problems we are working to solve. The Opposition offered no solutions.

In her contribution, Deputy McDonald pointed to the importance of the Fianna Fáil Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Fine Gael Minister for Finance. Sinn Féin held the posts of minister for housing and minister for finance in Northern Ireland up until the Government there fell a month ago. What did that deliver? Last year in Northern Ireland with a Sinn Féin housing minister and a Sinn Féin finance minister, which are very important according to Deputy McDonald, the average price of the average home rose by £18,000. This is a 12% increase with a Sinn Féin housing minister and a Sinn Féin finance minister. If you are looking to Sinn Féin to deliver, its track record would not speak very well in that regard.

The key priority for me has been mica and the Minister has been working very hard to deliver on that.

Deputy Thomas Gould

Kicking and screaming.

Deputy Charlie McConalogue

We are making a real impact. Legislation has been introduced and we will have all homes in Donegal fixed. Again, if you look at Sinn Féin in that regard, the Minister asked it for advice in advance of that legislation but got none. Sinn Féin promised it would introduce its own legislation. It still has not published it six months after we introduced the legislation so, again, if we were looking to Sinn Féin in that regard, there would be very little delivery.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

We have disagreed on a lot but I think we can all agree that for many, house prices are unaffordable, rents are too high and an unacceptable number of people are in temporary accommodation. However, I rise to my feet to support the Minister because I believe he is leading the charge to address the housing crisis. As Vice Chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, I have had the opportunity to see him and his team at work over the past two years.

In February 2020, when many new Members of this House left behind our role as councillors, those in all parties and none were frustrated by a decade of undersupply. We could see the problem getting worse before it might get better. Some in the House put their party first ahead of the emergency and resigned themselves to the comfort of Opposition but there were many of us who were hungry to see change and to do things differently. There has been change - real change - and let me tell you how.

Previously, as councillors, we had two limited choices. We could build a low number of homes with low income limits, low budgets and a low number of staff or we could give that public land away to developers with no certainty regarding delivery or supply. They were unacceptable choices. With a new Minister and Government, all that has changed and we have a radically different housing plan that leads with public supply. Councillors the length and breadth of the country on public sites have greater budgets and more staff and can build more homes that are available to more people. Those councillors can build below-cost affordable purchase and below-cost secure and affordable rental such as we see in many European cities. They can partner with approved housing bodies and the Land Development Agency secure in the knowledge that there are multi-annual budgets. They can build 100% public housing on public land where that is needed.

They can buy more land for future development, tackle vacancy and dereliction, identify unutilised zoned land and tax it. Even on the sites they do not own, they can protect new homes for owner-occupiers and impose a new stricter obligation for social and affordable housing. While this and other supply measures come on stream, we have put in place protections and supports, including eviction bans, rent caps, deposit caps and rent credits, and we have continued the help-to-buy scheme and introduced the first home scheme. In the face of these solutions, when presented with the opportunity to solve the housing emergency, some in this House put their party first and voted against these measures. They voted against the Land Development Agency Bill, the Affordable Housing Bill and the budgets that funded them. We have empowered councils to help solve the housing crisis. We have established and capitalised a national Land Development Agency, a housing body that will deliver homes that will rival anything in the history of this State. For those listening outside this House, who do not have a home, I know all this seems like white noise. I want those people to know that change is happening. It is happening on the 25 public housing sites in my constituency alone. Planning is turning into building sites. Soon, those building sites will turn into homes for the people. We are not motivated by any investor or their dividends; we are motivated only by the people and their housing needs. I promise that this Government and the Minister have the ambition to solve this crisis. We have the money and the models, and we are building momentum.

Deputy Francis Noel Duffy

Access to a home is the issue of our time, and many are being restricted in getting a roof over their heads. A global depression, Brexit, a pandemic, unprecedented population growth and Putin's war have brought us here. Hearts and minds might be bought by sophistry, but Housing for All contains measured solutions and funding to meet our crisis. Through the stewardship of the Minister, I am proud to say that the Green Party has delivered legislation for 100% public housing on public land. Green Party cost-rental policy has firmly been actioned. The LDA alone has a remit to deliver 30,000 affordable high-quality cost-rental properties with succession rights. Our towns and villages are unique cultural settlements, where 30% of our population live. Under this Government, the Green Party has actioned its town centre first plans, with grants of up to €75,000 per unit available to tackle vacancy and dereliction, ensuring not only good-quality housing, but also job opportunities, safe and accessible public spaces, good transport links, climate resilience and the making of ten-minute towns. During its time in government, we have seen further Green Party policies actioned, including the abolition of co-living and the end of undemocratic strategic housing development systems. Working groups have been put in place to deliver redress for owners of defective dwellings. Further to the work of Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Catherine Martin, in the 32nd Dáil, I have tabled a Defective Dwellings Bill, which would secure a legal redress process for homeowners. A referendum on a right to housing was a key commitment secured in the programme for Government by the Green Party, and wording is being drafted currently. A right to a home should be in our Constitution, as is the right to an education. Over the past two years, I have participated in cross-party debates in Trinity College and UCD in which the Opposition spoke in favour of the nationalisation of all homes in Ireland and the prohibition of the purchasing of council houses by tenants. My parents were afforded this opportunity.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Come on.

Deputy Francis Noel Duffy

No party should keep people down. Our culture is stronger for liberating those who need help. I have full confidence in the Minister.

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

On Housing for All, let us talk about Limerick. The LDA was set up in 2018. How many houses were built in Limerick since then? I cannot hear the Minister for Finance. None, is it? That is right; no houses were built in Limerick. Very good. After investing €1.2 billion in the LDA, not one house was built in Limerick, but the members of the Government, including the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Transport and Deputy McAuliffe, who have spoken are from Dublin. That is the problem, when we are talking about rural versus urban. We have been waiting for 37 years for a sewerage system in Askeaton, where the sewage is going into the River Shannon. The Minister's Government has promised to fix it but there has been no delivery. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael made promises in respect of Glin, but there was no delivery. There was no delivery on housing or a sewerage system for Oola. I am not talking about what is happening today, or during the Minister's tenure as Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage; I am talking about the last 20 to 30 years. There has been no delivery. In Hospital, a system had to be put in place in the town until the system was upgraded, but no extra capacity was provided, which means no extra houses for the people in County Limerick. It is supposed to be Housing for All, but all I am hearing about is Dublin. What about Limerick? There are Deputies and Ministers here from Limerick, yet there is no delivery for Limerick.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

I have no personal gripe with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, but we have serious problems in Kerry. I have highlighted them several times already. There are 171 voids in County Kerry. That is not acceptable. The homeless centre that operated for years in Killarney has closed down because the Government has offered people €800 tax-free per month to house Ukrainians and refugees. That is €1,600 with tax. There are homeless people in Kerry. Did the Minister ever consider putting them in hotels? The Government has no problem with putting the members of other communities in hotels. There is no affordable home programme in Kerry. The Minister should not be shaking his head. There is no affordable home programme for Kerry, which other counties have for the next five years. The vacant property tax the Government tells us will compel people to sell their land is affecting farmers who cannot sell it. The Government is closing down Airbnbs. It will not let people do what they democratically have a right to do - to rent their house to whoever they want.

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae

Nobody in this House can genuinely question the Minister's work ethic or his commitment, but I have problems with the policies, such as the attack on short-term lets and properties rented on Airbnb. It is argued that the Government's policies will bring 12,000 homes back into the long-term rental sector. That will not happen. The Government is not providing enough money on the ground to do up vacant properties. We need €2.7 million in Kerry. The Taoiseach told me last week that money was not a problem. If it is not, I ask that the €2.7 million is provided and we will do up the vacant local authority houses that we have. There is no acquisition programme for local authorities to buy up houses in County Kerry. I compliment the Minister on the Croí Cónaithe fund scheme. It will be good and I hope it will work. The repair and lease scheme was bogged down with bureaucracy and that is why it failed. On the current land tax policy that is in place, no allowance is made for farmers who are actively farming land. We cannot put people out of the business that they are in. In Kenmare, there is no sewerage scheme and no development.

Having said all of that, in the seconds remaining, I want to comment on the Members who are proposing an attack here today and saying they have the solution to the housing crisis. They would not know one end of a shovel from the other. They could not build one block on top of another. If we were relying on them, they would not be able to house a hen.

Deputy Michael Collins

The Minister must think my decision to support him or not is a foregone conclusion, as he decided that I would not be one of the Independents to ring for support in the last few days. He should remember the saying of an old wise man in west Cork that what is not worth asking for is not worth getting. Votes of confidence or no confidence are very serious matters, as far as I am concerned. My record in the Dáil since 2016 shows I supported the former Minister, Frances Fitzgerald, the then Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Calleary, and Deputy Cowen, who were all wrongly accused. In 2016 I called for a vote of no confidence in the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, because the country was in a deep health crisis. I did not support the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, in the Zappone affair because of the lack of transparency. In my assessment of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage's time as Minister, I agree that he inherited a complete mess and it is going to take time to clean that up. However, the dozens who come to my office and clinics weekly in Skibbereen, Clonakilty, Bandon, Bantry and the surrounds do not have time. They are begging me for a home or not to let them be evicted. They are crying and afraid that they will not be able to build a home. I know of others who spent €10,000 on planning for a west Cork island family farm and were still refused permission. It leaves the housing crisis as bad now as at any time in the past. I find it easy to make a decision on the vote on that basis.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

The Minister must have also lost my telephone number, but that is okay. There are 3,500 people waiting on the housing list in County Tipperary. We have many homeless. We have agencies and people. We have direct build, modular build housing and everything else now for people fleeing the Ukraine war. I do not oppose that, but we cannot do it for our own people.

Someone said earlier that the Minister introduced 22 Acts. It is a pity he is not in the Gaiety Theatre or the Abbey Theatre. He is in the Houses of Parliament, however. He comes from the same school as Raphael P. Burke, G.V. Wright and company and, indeed, he is well-trained in blunder and bluff. I heard the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, speak about how people better look after agriculture and fishing but instead he is selling us out on that. The Tánaiste and Taoiseach did not even stay here for the debate to support the Minister. Many of the others would not be here either if they were not waiting for the Saturday sitting. Sunday might be a different story, however. They will be feeling sore and scratching their heads wanting to know what happened. It is time for the Minister to go and let someone who has a vision and way of doing something for someone take over.

Deputy Marian Harkin

This evening, each one of us is being asked to vote confidence in the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. As an Independent Deputy, I try to look at the evidence of how he has performed to date as Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. I am not interested in the politics or optics or in a call for a general election. That will not build a single house. My only concern is whether the Minister is doing his job. Are we building enough homes for our people? In less than two minutes, I will try to look at context, outcomes and future plans.

Any fair assessment of the Minister's two-and-a-half-year tenure would take into consideration the slowdown in construction due to Covid-19, the escalation in building costs, supply chain challenges and Putin's aggression. Nonetheless, the bottom line is that a Minister's job is to deliver regardless.

I looked at some of the figures and outcomes and saw that, for example, the number of planning permissions granted in the 12 months to the end of June 2022 has doubled compared with 2019. Of course, completions are what matter. In the 12 months to the end of September this year, 30% more homes have been built compared with 2019. The Croí Cónaithe and town centre first schemes have real potential for rural areas and the regions. Therefore, there is progress but there is a "but".

The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, nailed it when she said that we are building homes but we need to build them faster. That is what I want to see. I want to see real energy and real determination from this Government across all levels of government, from national right down to local, to deliver homes for our people. I want to see a Minister in charge who rapidly and with singular focus implements the 17 pieces of legislation he has brought forward because that is what matters. He has the money and much of the legislation in place. He has a lot of irons in the fire but any good blacksmith is judged by the finished product. We have yet to see that.

Deputy Joan Collins

The Minister is not responsible for the crisis in housing. The crisis is a result of an approach taken as far back as the 1980s when the State adopted a policy of not building public housing and relying solely on the private sector. The problem is based on the fact that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Labour Party and the Green Party bear responsibility for this.

What the Minister is responsible for is spoofing and he is very good at it. He is very good at pretending he has a solution and that he is making progress. The facts speak otherwise. Just 647 new houses were built by local authorities in the first six months of this year, with 11 local authorities building none. Of the 4,100 promised affordable and cost-rental homes for this year, only 325 affordable and 234 cost-rental homes were actually delivered in the same six-month period.

Homelessness has reached record numbers of more than 11,300 men, women and children. It is a terrible indictment of this Government and this has been developing over the past ten years. Rents are rising at record levels. A record number of notices to quit and evictions have been issued. According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, the most accurate estimate for households with a housing need may be close to 122,000. That takes in HAP and RAS. The Minister should go and take with him the Taoiseach, the Taoiseach-in-waiting and the rest of the Government. We need not just a change of Minister but a change of Government and policy.

Deputy Thomas Pringle

Soaring rents, outrageous house prices, crumbling County Donegal homes, large-scale housing defects countrywide, a severe shortage of housing supply, 166,000 vacant properties and homeless figures reaching all-time highs for four consecutive months. The Minister, Deputy O’Brien, is not a Minister for housing. He is a Minister for landlords, developers, vulture funds and homelessness. This Minister has, through his inaction, pitted the most vulnerable in our society against each other. He has driven and enforced an us versus them narrative and we are all suffering as a result. There is room for every single person in this country to be housed, and let us make it very clear that the decision not to do so is a choice by the Minister and the Government. This and previous governments have continually made housing a product of the market. That is the problem. That is the reality of the situation.

There are many reasons I will not be voting confidence in the Minister. One on which I will focus, however, and some of the Minister's colleagues mentioned it, is the massive amount of legislation he has brought forward in the House over his term. That is true, but how much of it came through in July and December when it can be guaranteed there will not be any scrutiny or anyone looking at it? The mica legislation was rushed through the House in July with no debate or scrutiny and no examination of amendments. It was rushed through and then nothing happened. There has been complete inaction since. The mica families and people had to stand and occupy council offices to force action by the Government to ensure they could actually get accommodation and get that done.

This week, a couple of planning Acts were put through in the jaws of Christmas when there will be no scrutiny and which will fundamentally change how the planning system will work in this country to the benefit of those same landlords, developers and vulture finds.

Minister of State at the Department of Justice (Deputy James Browne)

I stand in support of the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and the Government's motion of confidence in response to the cynical exercise of a motion put down to deflect from the work of the Minister and the Government.

Fianna Fáil sought the portfolio of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage at a difficult and challenging time. We sought it, when many others ran away from forming a Government, in order that we could deliver housing for the people of this country. Housing for All is just over one year old now and it is delivering. For the first time in ten years, we can see houses being built throughout the country in every county, including my own county of Wexford. The plan is fully backed financially. It is exceeding this year's target of more than 24,600 public, private and affordable homes. Yes, there is much more work to be done, but it is on the back of more than ten years of underinvestment in housing. We will deliver, however.

We are now seeing deep change. We are seeing that this plan is taking hold and that a detailed and comprehensive strategy can make a difference. Those in opposition have offered no plan. They have offered no alternative strategy, only grandstanding and a disingenuous attempt to claim a monopoly on empathy.

The Minister visited my county of Wexford only two weeks ago. We heard from Sinn Féin councillors for more than two years demanding that he go into the local authority chamber and answer questions. The first problem was that for a year and a half of that, Sinn Féin councillors forgot to invite the Minister because they were so busy running to the local radio station and newspapers. When he agreed to visit the chamber and answer all the questions, Sinn Féin councillors complained that he was going to visit on a day they could not take the day off work. Therefore, the Minister agreed to meet them in the evening.

They then complained that he was going to spend only one hour and would not be able to answer all the questions in that time. He said he would not leave that chamber until every question was answered. The Sinn Féin councillors left after about 15 minutes because they had no questions once faced with detailed answers. A local newspaper noted that after months of fury from Sinn Féin councillors, the “councillors fail to land a glove... as forecasted fury fails to materialise”. The local journalist stated:

It would also be fair to say that the same levels of anger and frustration usually directed towards Minister O’Brien in his absence were not present while he was positioned at the top table in the council chamber.

A star chamber it was not. As one councillor described it, they were “Mighty Mouse in the media, Mickey Mouse in the chamber.”

The original motion put by People Before Profit clearly seeks to put politics before people and I am glad to support the Government’s countermotion. Instead of banging the drum of self-promotion, we need solutions and the Minister is bringing those.

Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Deputy Darragh O'Brien)

I thank colleagues from the three Government parties and those Members of the Opposition who have spoken in our favour. People watching the debate have witnessed the contrast between those who want to solve the housing situation and those who want to manipulate it. People will make up their minds on that at the appropriate time. I am glad the debate is coming to an end because we might have no more Sinn Féin Deputies in the House if it continues any longer. We are down to less than a third.

Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh

I will wait for you. I will listen to you. I am well used to listening to the bullshite.

Deputy Seán Crowe

Do not be worrying. We are not going anywhere.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

It is an important issue. I and my Government colleagues are acutely aware of the challenge the country has in tackling and solving the housing crisis. All of us in this House, whether Government or Opposition and whether some like it or not, have a responsibility to help resolve it, not to capitalise on it, manipulate it, sow division, block, delay or use any tactic to avoid supporting legislation that will fast-track delivery of the social homes that all of us in government want. Many in opposition say they want them but when it comes down to it and they are asked to press the button, press “Tá” and support it, they do not.

The proposers of the motion which would have been taken tomorrow had Government not put down a motion of confidence, and the reason we are debating this, are our colleagues in the Opposition from People Before Profit. Members from that party regularly state we should build public housing on public land. The Government agrees with that and is doing that. When the Government introduced legislation to do it and set up a Land Development Agency on a legislative footing, what did Members from that party do? They voted against it. They were not the only ones. Sinn Féin voted against it. Deputy Cian O’Callaghan and his friends in the Social Democrats voted against it. I assume a number of colleagues opposite also voted against it. That agency delivered its first homes this year on State land, has broken ground on the biggest social and affordable housing site this country has seen in decades, in Shanganagh Castle, which Deputy Boyd Barrett had difficulties with as well.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

I did not. I campaigned for it for 15 years.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

That might be a first. I stand to be corrected and will check the council records. There is a very serious-----

Deputy Mattie McGrath

All Baile Átha Cliath.

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

There is a very serious thing this Government is engaging in, namely, providing housing for all. That is why all three parties of the Government have put together a comprehensive plan that is detailed and clear for anyone who wants to read it. It sets out the actions across Government that need to be taken to improve the situation for our citizens. No one on the Opposition benches has put forward a comparable alternative. Any fair assessment will show that.

Not only have we put together a plan but we have backed it with finance and are delivering it. What did we do this year on social housing? This Government believes in social housing, even though some in the Opposition, the main Opposition party in particular, will try to paint a them-and-us attitude and suggest that we do not get it, understand it or meet people. I represent the people of Dublin Fingal and thank the hundreds of them and across the country who were in touch with me in the past week giving support and acknowledging what some Members do not want to acknowledge, namely, that this is a complex situation and not easy to resolve. We will resolve it but some want to paint this in simplistic terms, suggesting they have a solution and can sort it immediately. They cannot.

Deputy Bríd Smith

Ten years

Deputy Darragh O'Brien

The public knows that too. Let us show some respect to voters. That respect should extend to the fact that when Members bring forward alternatives, they should stack up and be implementable. If you support social housing across this country, do not object to it. Do not let your councillors object time after time or find any reason to object. Do not vote against legislation that will fast-track the delivery of social and affordable housing. Do not vote against legislation that means we can build on State-owned land and deliver 100% affordable and social housing.

The Social Democrats say they want cost rental. The Government delivered that within 12 months where it had not existed, but the Social Democrats voted against the Affordable Housing Act that sets up cost rental via a national scheme across the board. When I meet, as I do from time to time, Social Democrat councillors around the country going to the opening of new housing estates, I will welcome them.

We have to ensure we are delivering the supply we need across the board. Thankfully, we are doing it this year. Is it enough? Of course it is not. Do we want to build up capacity to build more? Of course we do. That is the purpose of this plan. You do not go from 20,000 homes in one year to 40,000 the next. It is not doable but we have shown a way to get there by putting home ownership back at the centre of housing solutions. Our young women and young men working and renting who want to own their homes can now do that. There have been 16,000 first-time buyers in this past year. The first home scheme is the State stepping in to take the equity between the finance someone has and what they need. We have done it. It is in place and more and more people are getting out of that rental trap and accessing the scheme.

What do People Before Profit and Sinn Féin do? Against, against, against. It is a political judgment being made by many in the Opposition to slow progress so there is not progress in two years’ time. Colleagues have a responsibility to ensure our citizens have homes and the number one priority for the Government is to tackle the homelessness crisis. We will do everything and I as Minister will work every hour that is sent to make sure we turn around that situation. Fundamentally, it is about supplying new homes.

I ask Deputies Boyd Barrett, Paul Murphy and others to talk to their councillors around the country about new homes. A letter arrived in Carlow County Council on 18 November from one of their councillors objecting to 42 senior citizens’ houses in Carlow. Why? What can be wrong with that? I ask Sinn Féin what is wrong with vacancy grants? What is wrong with giving people the support they need to tackle vacancy through Croí Conaithe grants? We have a suite of measures in our plan. We are focused on delivering it and will continue to do so. I thank colleagues for their support and their contributions.

Question put:

The Dáil divided: Tá, 86; Níl, 63; Staon, 1.

Tá

• Berry, Cathal.
• Brophy, Colm.
• Browne, James.
• Bruton, Richard.
• Burke, Colm.
• Burke, Peter.
• Butler, Mary.
• Byrne, Thomas.
• Cahill, Jackie.
• Calleary, Dara.
• Canney, Seán.
• Cannon, Ciarán.
• Carey, Joe.
• Carroll MacNeill, Jennifer.
• Chambers, Jack.
• Collins, Niall.
• Costello, Patrick.
• Coveney, Simon.
• Cowen, Barry.
• Creed, Michael.
• Crowe, Cathal.
• Devlin, Cormac.
• Dillon, Alan.
• Donnelly, Stephen.
• Donohoe, Paschal.
• Duffy, Francis Noel.
• Durkan, Bernard J.
• English, Damien.
• Feighan, Frankie.
• Fitzmaurice, Michael.
• Fitzpatrick, Peter.
• Flaherty, Joe.
• Flanagan, Charles.
• Fleming, Sean.
• Foley, Norma.
• Grealish, Noel.
• Griffin, Brendan.
• Harris, Simon.
• Haughey, Seán.
• Heydon, Martin.
• Higgins, Emer.
• Hourigan, Neasa.
• Humphreys, Heather.
• Kehoe, Paul.
• Lawless, James.
• Leddin, Brian.
• Lowry, Michael.
• Madigan, Josepha.
• Martin, Catherine.
• Martin, Micheál.
• Matthews, Steven.
• McAuliffe, Paul.
• McConalogue, Charlie.
• McGrath, Michael.
• McGuinness, John.
• McHugh, Joe.
• Moynihan, Aindrias.
• Moynihan, Michael.
• Murnane O'Connor, Jennifer.
• Naughten, Denis.
• Naughton, Hildegarde.
• Noonan, Malcolm.
• O'Brien, Darragh.
• O'Brien, Joe.
• O'Callaghan, Jim.
• O'Connor, James.
• O'Dea, Willie.
• O'Donnell, Kieran.
• O'Donovan, Patrick.
• O'Dowd, Fergus.
• O'Gorman, Roderic.
• O'Sullivan, Christopher.
• O'Sullivan, Pádraig.
• Ó Cathasaigh, Marc.
• Ó Cuív, Éamon.
• Phelan, John Paul.
• Rabbitte, Anne.
• Richmond, Neale.
• Ring, Michael.
• Ryan, Eamon.
• Smith, Brendan.
• Smyth, Niamh.
• Smyth, Ossian.
• Stanton, David.
• Troy, Robert.
• Varadkar, Leo.

Níl

• Andrews, Chris.
• Bacik, Ivana.
• Barry, Mick.
• Boyd Barrett, Richard.
• Brady, John.
• Browne, Martin.
• Buckley, Pat.
• Cairns, Holly.
• Carthy, Matt.
• Clarke, Sorca.
• Collins, Joan.
• Collins, Michael.
• Connolly, Catherine.
• Conway-Walsh, Rose.
• Cronin, Réada.
• Crowe, Seán.
• Cullinane, David.
• Daly, Pa.
• Doherty, Pearse.
• Donnelly, Paul.
• Ellis, Dessie.
• Farrell, Mairéad.
• Funchion, Kathleen.
• Gould, Thomas.
• Guirke, Johnny.
• Healy-Rae, Danny.
• Healy-Rae, Michael.
• Howlin, Brendan.
• Kelly, Alan.
• Kenny, Gino.
• Kenny, Martin.
• Kerrane, Claire.
• Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
• McDonald, Mary Lou.
• McGrath, Mattie.
• Mitchell, Denise.
• Murphy, Catherine.
• Murphy, Paul.
• Murphy, Verona.
• Mythen, Johnny.
• Nash, Ged.
• Nolan, Carol.
• O'Callaghan, Cian.
• O'Donoghue, Richard.
• O'Reilly, Louise.
• O'Rourke, Darren.
• Ó Broin, Eoin.
• Ó Laoghaire, Donnchadh.
• Ó Murchú, Ruairí.
• Ó Ríordáin, Aodhán.
• Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
• Pringle, Thomas.
• Quinlivan, Maurice.
• Ryan, Patricia.
• Sherlock, Sean.
• Shortall, Róisín.
• Smith, Bríd.
• Smith, Duncan.
• Stanley, Brian.
• Tóibín, Peadar.
• Tully, Pauline.
• Whitmore, Jennifer.
• Wynne, Violet-Anne.

Staon

• Harkin, Marian.

Tellers: Tá, Deputies Jack Chambers and Brendan Griffin; Níl, Deputies Richard Boyd Barrett and Paul Murphy.

Question declared carried.