Housing and securing a roof over one's head is, without question, the biggest dilemma facing many ordinary people. It is the biggest challenge facing workers and families in their daily lives. I was in Cork yesterday and I was greeted by the results of the Government's disastrous housing policies. In Fairhill, I met a young woman who is at her wits' end. She earns too much to be eligible for social housing but she cannot afford a mortgage. At Blackpool shopping centre, I spoke with one mother whose son faces daily stress because of the amount of rent he is paying. This young man lives in daily fear of eviction. I also visited Cork Penny Dinners, an outstanding organisation run by volunteers. It was once a soup kitchen but it now provides accommodation services. This charity has stepped up because of the mess Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have created.

Across the State, people are rightfully angry at the sight of boarded-up council houses. They are frustrated with each news report about rents reaching new record highs. They are baffled by the complete lack of delivery in respect of affordable housing. They are also angry at reports such as the one we heard earlier regarding the huge impact of homelessness on the physical and psychological health of children and babies. People are sick of this housing crisis and yet it seems to still just go on and on.

There is a site in my constituency, O'Devaney Gardens, in respect of which the wrong decisions are being made again. We need homes in O'Devaney Gardens. We need affordable homes that will take families off housing lists and we need affordable rental homes. That is not what we are getting. The plan for the site, as concocted by the parties involved in the Dublin Agreement 2019 to 2024, is a dog's dinner. It is a stark example of everything that is wrong with housing policy in the State and it simply will not deliver in the context of meeting people's needs. These proposed homes will not be affordable for ordinary workers and families and there are no affordable rental homes. As it stands, the plan is a bonanza for the developer at the expense of the local community. Alarmingly, the team of Fianna Fáil, the Green Party, the Social Democrats and the Labour Party knew that their plan was a dog's dinner when they forced it through at Dublin City Council. We need to call a halt to the type of chance-your-arm politics that led to all of this mess in the first place. We need a change of direction and a change of plan. Sinn Féin has proposed the right scheme for the site with 33% social or council housing, 33% cost rental housing and 33% affordable housing for sale. There is a special meeting of Dublin City Council on Monday night to decide this matter. I call on Dublin City Council councillors to do the right thing and scrap this dog's dinner of a deal. I want them to support a new deal. I put it to the Minister that the Government should support a new scheme for O'Devaney Gardens and commit to resourcing that new plan.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The Taoiseach was in Cork last Saturday. There is a new affordable housing investment there of €310 million for a new affordable, shared housing scheme in Cork. I have no doubt that this is welcome. Affordable homes will be included in that investment.

The supply of new homes is increasing. There were 4,920 new homes completed in quarter 2 of 2019. This is an 11% increase on quarter 2 in 2018. More than 18,000 new homes were built in 2018, which is a 25% increase on 2017 and the highest number of newly built homes in any year this decade. Some 42,300 new homes have been built since the launch of Rebuilding Ireland in 2016. This supply of new homes will continue to increase. A total of 28,970 planning permissions were granted in quarter 1, which is up 21%. Total commencement notices as of June 2019 were 24,226, which is an increase of 29% on last year. The supply of homes is increasing.

The O'Devaney Gardens development involves a €100 million investment. On Monday 4 November Dublin City Council, by 38 votes to 19 agreed to proceed with a proposal by the city council executive to develop lands in O'Devaney Gardens. Bartra Capital will now build 768 houses and apartments on the site. Currently, 50% of the scheme, which is 411 units, has been earmarked for private housing, 30% has been ring-fenced for social housing and the other 20% is set to become affordable housing. In advance of the vote, councillors representing Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party, the Social Democrats and the Green Party indicated that an agreement had been secured to purchase 30% of the total units available at O'Devaney Gardens from Bartra. The council, however, voted on 4 November to proceed on the basis of the original plan and the agreement referred to by councillors appears to have no legal standing. Bartra has simply indicated a willingness to sell private units to the council at prices it will itself determine. Acquiring homes at the full, open-market price cannot be the basis for affordable, cost rental because the rents that result - which would be required to finance the loans and other costs - would be close to market rents.

I might suggest that the Taoiseach go back to Cork, not for the purpose of a photo opportunity with a hard hat on, but to actually talk with the people who have told me, and who I am sure would tell him, of their huge anger and frustration. The houses are not available and there is no point in the Minister trying to bamboozle people with statistics. The lived reality is that people cannot get houses. They pass by boarded-up homes, which adds insult to injury.

In the context of O'Devaney Gardens, we are left in a situation where the use of public land will give rise to a big windfall for the developer and the community will be left in the lurch. On the one hand, we are caught between Fine Gael, which does not know what affordability means and whose plan brought forward no affordable purchase homes, and Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party, the Green Party and the Social Democrats, who cobbled together, mar dhea, a dog's dinner of a so-called deal just to get the proposal through the council. They misled Dublin City Council, they misled the general public and, most damningly, they misled the community living in that part of the inner city.

I again put it to the Minister that these plans with Bartra be put aside and that we collectively do the right thing, which is absolutely doable and achievable, and deliver real, affordable homes, affordable rental homes and the much-needed council housing. This can still be done but we need people to step up and move away from the Fianna Fáil brand of chancing the arm, winging it and hoping to get away with it.

This is a disgrace. What is happening on the site is an absolute disgrace-----

Please Deputy, the time is up.

-----and the Government is duty bound to intervene.

We certainly know about affordable. The houses in Cork I mentioned earlier with regard to the €310 million investment are certainly affordable at €200,000. I may give statistics but the statistics are new homes. Better figures mean more homes for more people.

To go back to the O'Devaney Gardens issue, the Deputy is right that we have to be honest with people. We should not be giving people misinformation. To be clear on the O'Devaney Gardens issue, there is no new agreement. We have the original deal. It is agreed. Just to be clear, any change to the O'Devaney Gardens proposal as it stands at present will set it back another five years and I do not think people want to wait another five years.