I am sure the viewers will be interested to hear Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil swapping back and forth on the way the Government is approaching this whole issue of water charges because it is a Fianna Fáil proposition. The Taoiseach asked yesterday about Sinn Féin's budget, which I sent to him this morning. I hope he has had the chance to read it.

Fairy tales.

It contains proposals to rebuild the economy, renew society and to repair the damage done to the community by the Government and by Fianna Fáil before it. It contains a proposal, which I commend to the Taoiseach, to lift the burden on low and middle income households by scrapping domestic water charges. It tells him how to do this and how to pay for it.

However, I want to concentrate on another crisis, the crisis in housing. Our budget proposals include a proposal to build 6,000 new homes over the next 18 months and it tells the Taoiseach how this should be funded. I do not know if the Taoiseach has noticed but there are 20,000 applications for housing in Dublin City Council, which is an increase of 3,000 since last year. The real number is higher but this particular Dublin council list verifies that all of these citizens have had their need for housing established by the council. More than one third are living in overcrowded conditions or have particular medical or welfare needs. Some 1,136 applicants are homeless in this city, and that is repeated throughout this State.

In addition to the main waiting list, 5,645 tenants are already living in social housing but are seeking to transfer because one quarter of them are living in overcrowded conditions and others need to move out of flats because they do not have wheelchair access. Some 100 of these people need to change their accommodation because of changed family circumstances. In my constituency, there are more than 5,000 on the housing list.

What is the Government's plan to deal with this ongoing crisis? The ESRI has called on the Government to make a major investment in social housing in the next week's budget instead of making the tax cuts it has been promising. Will the Taoiseach accept our proposition? If he has not had the chance to read it, I would commend it to him. Will he accept the proposition from the ESRI to invest in social housing instead of making the tax cuts the Government has been proposing?

I thank Deputy Adams. In regard to his comment on the water charges, I understand Sinn Féin proposes that domestic water charges should be abolished and that this would then go back on the public pay bill. This would impose a charge of €850 million to be raised. I understand from its submission that it has left aside something like €300 million, leaving a hole in that particular area of €550 million, which it would need to explain.

I also understand that Sinn Féin wants to increase employers' PRSI by 5% and increase the top rate of income tax by 7%. That is an is an additional 12 percentage point tax on jobs. I am not sure if Sinn Féin is serious about this because if it is, it would drive every employer and every potential investor out of the country in terms of the creation of jobs. That would leave us with Sinn Féin's proposition of a 48% income tax rate, raising €365 million three years in a row. By implementing a 7% tax increase three times, it would raise the top income tax rate to more than 62%, leaving an incredible total tax rate of 73% when USC and PRSI are included. If it wants to close down the country, that is the kind of economics it should be proceeding with because it is not credible or real.

Deputy Adams raised a very important issue about housing. I want him to understand that the Government will respond to this, alongside the budget next week and in the time ahead. Clearly, there is a serious supply and demand issue, in particular in the greater Dublin area. The issue of homelessness, of those who have been put out of apartments and houses because of rent increases and of the demand for housing - a demand which is rising very rapidly - is a cause of great concern. The recently published planning Bill, being dealt with by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, provides for a vacant site levy of 3% to encourage development, a new Part 5 to deliver 4,000 additional units by 2020, changes to development contributions and the use it or lose it approach to planning permissions. These are all designed to make an impact on the construction sector.

Deputy Adams knows contractors will not build houses unless it is profitable for them to do so. The Government is acutely aware of the fact we need an income stream for contractors to build and for buyers to purchase and a planning process in place to allow for that to happen.

There are many thousands of houses for which planning permission has been approved under the old regulations, some of them in the wrong place, but we will look at the incentives that might be brought in to make an impact on how this can happen.

The Government will publish shortly a five-year social housing strategy, which is the key commitment of the Construction 2020 document that we published. The need for social housing based on last year's assessment is very well documented and accepted by everyone. The Housing Agency has admitted that to meet housing need over the next five years, we need 35,000 housing units to be provided. The Government's challenge is to meet social housing need in an innovative and cost-effective manner. The ESRI has put forward its view, as some of the others have as well. The Government has to make a decision on this, and the strategy being finalised will take into account budget 2015 and will be published by the Minister, Deputy Kelly, very shortly after the budget. Deputy Adams should know that we are acutely conscious of it, as are the people looking for housing who will be accommodated in social housing. Government will produce its specific strategy and plan, alongside the budget, in the very near future taking into account all these very valid submissions.

We made a very valid submission which the Taoiseach misrepresented, deliberately and maliciously, in what he said. All our propositions have been costed. The Taoiseach might not like them because he thinks the people should serve the economy whereas those of us on this side of the House believe in a republican vision where the economy serves the people. That means those who are most in need.

I raised the issue of housing not to indulge in the Taoiseach's Walter Mitty-type approach to these serious propositions but to bring to his attention that there is a huge housing crisis. There are 89,000 households in housing need. There are also 76,000 families in receipt of rent supplement. Riddle me this, Taoiseach. Failing to house these families costs the State €30 million in emergency accommodation. That is his brand of economics. We spend €500 million annually in subsidising private rents. Who are the rent racketeers? Who are the landlords? Does cronyism have anything to do with the failure of this Government to put in rent controls because it has refused to put rent controls in place?

Thank you, Deputy. We are over time.

The cost of renting has risen by more than one quarter in Dublin alone. The average rent for accommodation in the city is in excess of €900 a month. That is the reality. When we bring forward propositions, the Taoiseach might not like them. He might disagree with them or want to take issue with them-----

Would you put your question, Deputy?

-----but he should at least give them the serious consideration that we put into them on behalf of those we represent, and others we do not represent, in putting them forward.

The Taoiseach did not answer my question, which is, and this is not a Sinn Féin proposition, if he will heed the call of the ESRI to move away from tax cuts and to invest in social housing. Will he accept its proposition, and will he give those families in need a very clear indication that he will do that?

I accept the principle referred to by the ESRI and many others that there is a need to meet social housing demand. Clearly, this is an issue Government has reflected upon in terms of Construction 2020-----

Stop reflecting and start doing.

-----and the new planning Bill and the issues that pertain in terms of Part V, incentivising contractors and builders-----

Incentivising builders.

-----to be able to get back to the business of providing houses.

Have we learned nothing?

We hope that 5,000 homes will be added to the social housing stock this year.

You should be doing your job.

For the Deputy's information, the Government made available €68 million to the local authorities as a construction initiative.

You said there was no housing emergency.

Would you stay quiet please? Thank you.

Would you stay quiet?

That funding will restart the local housing authority scheme directly. We put forward €15 million to restore up to 1,800 vacant units, particularly here in Dublin, designed to reduce pressure on the housing lists. There is no reason many of these units have been boarded up for years when they could be turned into comfortable warm homes for people to live in.

You did not provide the funding to do it.

You have been saying that for two years.

The €68 million injection to the local authorities will provide almost 500 homes over the next two years. They have to be built.

Why not 6,000?

Thirty-five million euro was also brought forward this year for people who have a disability-----

Five thousand more will be joining the list.

-----people without a home and the elderly. There has been a €30 million investment in 2014 to improve the energy efficiency of local authority housing-----

You cut €70 million from the budget from the start. Will you stop?

-----and a €10 million investment this year to kick-start the resolution on the remaining unfinished housing development. NAMA and the Government will respond in parallel to the budget to deal with the question of social housing.

The answer is "No". The Taoiseach says "No".

The issue raised by the ESRI, which has been raised by many other housing agencies, is very clear. There is a real demand. No matter who is in government, even the Deputy's party, they would have to have contractors and builders provide blocks, foundations and houses. It takes time to build them.

The Taoiseach has had four years.

The Deputy, with his fantasy economics, cannot put these houses on the ground just like that.

It took an election for you to-----

We will deal with it next week and the week after.

That is totally pathetic, Taoiseach.

But real, Gerry.