Baineann mo cheist leis an ngéarchéim atá ann ó thaobh cúrsaí tithíochta, go náisiúnta agus go háirithe i nGaillimh, agus an ról faoi leith atá ag polasaithe agus beartais tithíochta an Rialtais, atá ag cothú na géarchéime sin.

Today I walked from my privileged accommodation to the Dáil, which is perhaps less than 600 m. I counted 16 homeless people living in doorways. Nine of them were outside the Gaiety Theatre; the drama venue was closed inside while the drama continues outside on our streets.

Yesterday the Government had a golden opportunity to do something different. We were talking about Monopoly money of billions of euro, and every respected institution is telling us to spend so we can help with the solidarity in communities by building them. We should finally realise that we cannot talk about an economy without talking about people. Yesterday I listened to the speech of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath. I call him the passive Minister or the Minister of the passive tense. He is the Minister of the saorbhriathar. He spoke about rents and house prices rising without any responsibility or looking at the causes of the homelessness I mentioned or the increasing waiting lists, which are directly related to Government policies.

The Taoiseach might tell me that homelessness is complex but I can pre-empt that by agreeing with him. Some people are on our streets because of complex problems but the vast majority of homelessness and the numbers on housing waiting lists are caused by Government policies.

Yesterday the Government gave the vast bulk of public money to private landlords through the housing assistance payment, HAP, the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and long-term leasing. I could name people in Galway who have been waiting for more than 15 years and have never been offered a house. That deserves an inquiry in itself. The housing assistance payment has been the only game in town since 2016. It was enshrined in law by Fine Gael and the Labour Party. It is time for the Taoiseach to do what his Minister called for yesterday when he was not using the saorbhriathar and said we need a radical reappraisal of how we deliver housing.

Can we leave ideology behind for once? We have people on the street and huge numbers of people on waiting lists. I could go into the figures for Galway. Will the Government make a commitment to building public housing on public land as an integral part of the solution?

I thank the Deputy agus aontaím léi. Níl aon amhras ach gurb í géarchéim na tithíochta an ghéarchéim is mó atá againn lasmuigh den choróinvíreas, mar gheall ar an easpa tithíochta do ghnáthmhuintir na tíre, agus go háirithe na daoine nach bhfuil aon tithe acu in aon chor. Bhí béim sa cháinaisnéis inné ar thithíocht phoiblí go háirithe a chur i bhfeidhm. Tá sé i gceist againn 9,500 teach poiblí a thógáil an bhliain seo chugainn agus 10,000 gach aon bhliain ina dhiaidh sin. Sin an aidhm atá againn agus an príomh-rud ná go bhfuil na háiseanna agus an t-airgead ann chun é sin a chur i bhfeidhm.

I agree with the Deputy's emphasis on commissioning and building public housing alongside affordable housing. We need specific targets for the building of social homes. The HAP has grown up in recent years. I believe in rebalancing it. The less emphasis we place on the HAP and the more we place on increasing housing stock, the better. That is what we are determined to achieve through the social housing Bill. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, believes passionately in that, as does the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. I took a particular interest in this myself. I wanted direct builds. Local authorities should start building. I am saying to local authorities throughout the country that the funding will be made available. We have changed regulations to allow them to work faster and more effectively. They should go out and build social housing.

In the short term we have moved on homelessness in light of the Covid-19 situation. The system acquired some capacity from March onwards. The Minister has put out a call for housing. We are trying to build more units for single people who are homeless, a cohort for which there is an absence of suitable accommodation. Yesterday's funding package is very strong on homelessness. The aim is to drive down the numbers. We must make that a priority and proceed in line with the policies of the NGOs at the front line of homelessness issues. The private sector will have a role to play, but to do its job effectively the State is not limited to creating conditions for construction to happen. Critically, it must directly enable the building of social housing and ensure the critical skills are there to deliver it over time. That is why multi-annual funding is required to underpin the social housing programme. That has been built in. In other words, agencies will not be living from year to year, wondering if they will get the funding next year to follow through on what they start to build this year. Multi-annual funding is critical to the realisation of social housing targets and I am very committed to it.

The worst thing about this is that with each Government, language means nothing. I hear what the Taoiseach is telling me, but the reality is that the Government is putting more than €1.2 billion directly into the private sector under the three schemes I mentioned. I did not mention other programmes such the help to buy scheme, which the Parliamentary Budget Office has clearly shown did not target the right people.

I really tire of this type of language. The Taoiseach did not put money in the budget to rectify the housing crisis. Homelessness is a symptom of it. In Galway, we will very soon have the same number of people on the HAP as in social housing. Can the Taoiseach imagine that? He is looking perplexed. The housing assistance payment has been the only game in town. We have privatised public housing. The Taoiseach keeps talking about social housing. The HAP is not a social housing programme. It is private housing temporarily lent to the State so the landlord and the developer can make a profit. The only person who loses out is the tenant, who has no security.

The Government made a further allocation to the Land Development Agency, which is clearly doing the job of a developer. Galway, one of the five cities destined to grow, has no master plan. Those responsible for Ceannt Station, the Galway Docks and the Dyke Road area are all doing their own thing. The city council is playing an inactive part in what the previous Tánaiste acknowledged is developer-led development. We have a major housing crisis as a consequence of Government policy. The Taoiseach did not avail of the opportunity to change that radically.

Just because Deputy Connolly says we did not does not mean we did not. We did. I do not use language lightly. I have not been in Government for ten years. The housing assistance payment has been in place for about that length of time, maybe less. Dismantling HAP now, as the Deputy seems to be advocating, would immediately create homelessness. The housing assistance payment is a very large intervention. Yesterday we provided funding for 9,500 direct builds, to be provided by local authorities and approved housing bodies. There will be 10,000 units every year after that. That gives us a target of 50,000 on the social housing side. That is the largest target ever, though I accept we have a larger population now than before. I will not go into which intervention is the biggest. The important issue will be delivery. The policy changes have been made and the funding has been provided and ring-fenced for local authorities and approved housing bodies to build social housing at scale over a five-year period. The money is multi-annual.

The Deputy is correct in some respects. The housing assistance payment became a way for local authorities to say they were resolving social housing issues through a rental process. In time, that crowded out the private market to the extent that the State made it unaffordable for many people. I never favoured pursuing that policy exclusively. I have always believed there should be a balance between social housing and a strong and vibrant private sector. We also need affordable housing to ensure that young couples can realise their aspirations to purchase a home. Delivery will be the key to getting the job done.