Figures published yesterday by Banking & Payments Federation Ireland show a surge in mortgage approval rates for October, driven by first-time buyers. Behind that figure is a very worrying spike in house prices, which reflects the broken housing policies of this Government and the previous one. On average, first-time buyers are now borrowing €10,000 more than was the case last year. It is worse for other borrowers, who are borrowing €15,000, on average, more than was the case last year. This reflects a very serious hike in house prices, which is a problem at any time but is outrageous in the middle of a pandemic when the incomes of so many people have collapsed.

The continued increase in housing prices is being compounded by Government policy. In July, the Government turbocharged the help to buy scheme, a scheme that disproportionately benefits high-income earners, transfers taxpayers' money directly into the pockets of developers and increases property prices. The Government was warned by the ESRI and others that expanding this scheme would inflate house prices, which would hurt the majority of people who are trying to buy a home, but the Government did not listen. Meanwhile, workers on much more modest incomes are totally left behind. Take-up of Rebuilding Ireland home loans for first-time buyers is down. Applications in 2020 are down by 45% and approvals are down by 50%. Since Covid, shockingly, drawdowns have collapsed by 70%. This is a consequence of the Government's discrimination against workers on the wage subsidy scheme.

A comprehensive, affordable housing plan is urgently needed. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, spent the summer telling anyone with a pair of ears that his affordable housing plan would be published in September. We are now in December and there is no plan. The Government is five months in office and its promise to tackle the housing crisis from the get-go has fallen flat. Homes remain unaffordable for people on average incomes, rents continue to rise and house prices are up for first-time buyers despite the pandemic. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage said last week that he has banned co-living yet, this week, a co-living development was given planning permission in Dublin.

This is not a Government that is serious about tackling the housing crisis. Behind all of the statistics and figures is an entire generation for whom home ownership is now a pipe dream, people who will struggle to keep a secure roof over their heads, people who worry about their rent and people who are in extraordinarily precarious positions, many of whom live in the box room of their mother's home, sometimes with their own children. Their situations, stories and lived reality prove that the Government's housing policies are not working.

I believe that all of this can be fixed, but only with ambition and a very significant change in policy. So long as the Government's housing policy is fashioned for wealthy developers, this crisis will remain as a feature of life in Ireland. This is the truth that must be confronted. When will the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage finally publish his affordable housing plan?

First of all, the Deputy is incorrect and is wrong. We know that Covid-19 has had a very significant impact on the housing situation in 2020. It is true that Rebuilding Ireland home loan approvals have been down this year because of Covid-19 and significantly so in quarters 1 and 2. The pandemic impacted significantly on the building sector because of the first lockdown, and that has followed through. Commercial mortgage approvals, by the way, were down 30% in quarters 1 and 2 of 2020.

The Government, in the budget, has brought in a €3.3 billion investment programme for both social and affordable housing. It is the largest ever scale of investment in housing by the State. The issue will be delivery of construction and getting the projects built. The commitment is to deliver social and affordable housing in various forms. Covid has also created another situation which will ultimately have an impact on housing. That is the enormous increase in household savings throughout the country because of the impact of the crisis on spending in the economy during the past nine months. That is being evaluated in terms of its potential impacts on the market over the coming year.

The Minister provided significant resources in the budget for affordable housing in different formats, not just through the serviced sites fund but also through the local infrastructure housing activation fund and undertaking to deliver a new affordable purchase shared equity scheme for first-time buyers and a new funding model to accelerate the delivery of cost rental homes through the approved housing body sector. Some €200 million has been put into financing the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme. The Government is absolutely committed to it and legislation will be brought forward by the Minister in the coming while to deal with the affordable issue. Legislation relating to the Land Development Agency is also progressing and we have put a very priority on it. We discussed the issue at the last meeting of the Cabinet subcommittee on housing and we see it as an additional important lever in terms of getting increased capacity.

The Deputy keeps on talking about developers and so on. The bottom line is that the output in 2020 will be approximately 18,000 houses, if we get there. Covid has had a very negative impact. Next year, the target could be around 25,000. Up to 12,500 of those houses will be approved housing body and local authority housing. There is no huge private sector out there at the moment in terms of house construction. That is the reality. The approach to housing has to be multipronged and multidimensional. It cannot be a one-dimensional, ideological approach, which the Deputy's party has advocated for too long and that has resulted in a lot of schemes being voted down or delayed. We need supply of housing in different forms. We need the private sector to develop housing, we need social housing developed at an unprecedented scale, which we are committed to and which we have provided the resources for, and we need affordable housing that is supported by the State, which we are committed to doing and which we are going to provide funding to do. Cost rental models and newer initiatives will also be supported and financed.

Our approach is to ensure that at all levels, at local level and at national level, there is a whole collective effort to get houses built and avoid situations such as we had last week where a scheme for 950 houses was delayed for ideological reasons. That is not sustainable if we are genuinely to tackle the housing crisis we face in this country. The Government is only five months in office but I can tell the Deputy that we are very determined to get to grips with the housing issue and resolve it.

I will try to bring the Taoiseach in touch with some glimpse of reality. The people I referred to who are locked out of the housing market do not have massive household savings.

In fact, many of them are struggling just to get by. They pay rent, which has gone through the roof, and they struggle to have any savings. Many of them have lost work and income. They are relying on a proactive approach from a competent Government to deliver a housing package, including an affordable housing plan. Covid or no Covid, the Minister said repeatedly in the summer that we would have an affordable housing plan. That plan has not materialised.

We cannot go to Christmas without that plan being produced for all to see and scrutinise and then to be implemented. Those are the facts. I take no comfort from the Taoiseach's vague assurances that something will happen at some time. Will the Taoiseach tell the House, on 2 December, where this housing plan is? It was promised to us last summer. When will it be published and when will we see it?

I am not saying that people who need affordable housing have massive savings. That is why we are supporting them. That is the reason we put €150 million into the help-to-buy scheme which the Deputy refuses to support and which she attacks whenever she gets a chance. We want to give people support to enable them to buy homes. Approximately €760 million was provided in the budget for affordable housing, there was €110 million in new measures towards a shared equity scheme, €150 million for the help-to-buy scheme, €205 million for the Land Development Agency, LDA, €210 million for the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme and €50 million for the serviced sites fund. That is a comprehensive range of measures.

The bottom line is that, ideologically, the Deputy is not very taken by affordable housing. If she is sincere, I wish to work with other parties in the House. For example, is it not time we got on with the Oscar Traynor Road site, or do we want to put it back for another five years and just come to the House with a load of rhetoric about people waiting to get houses at affordable prices? That is what will happen. The Deputy continues to refuse and vote against schemes throughout the country because they do not fit her ideological frame. With respect, we have gone beyond ideology in the housing crisis. We all cannot have it our own way in terms of the ideal model. The Government is prepared to support social housing at an unprecedented level, as well as affordable housing and cost rental. It is time others worked with us in that regard.