Arís, baineann mo cheist le cúrsaí tithíochta agus leis an ngéarchéim tithíochta. Tá an t-ábhar seo ardaithe go mion minic agam ag an leibhéal seo, i gceisteanna don Taoiseach agus i ngach díospóireacht sa Dáil. Arís inniu, tá an cheist á ardú agam maidir leis an ngéarchéim tithíochta go náisiúnta agus go háirid i nGaillimh, áit a bhfuil daoine ag fanacht níos mó ná 15 bliain le teach a fháil.

I raise the housing emergency once again. Like other Deputies on the left, I have raised it continuously any chance I get. I have participated in every debate on housing to bring to the Taoiseach's attention what is happening. I will attempt to do that in the next two minutes. I ask the Taoiseach not to come back and tell me, as he told the leader of Sinn Féin, about rhetoric and bluster. I am allergic to it. I want an acknowledgement that the support of the previous Government and, going back further, Fianna Fáil-led governments, has led to the housing crisis. If the Taoiseach has had a moment on the road to Damascus, I welcome that. If he now says we need public housing on public land as an integral part of the solution to the housing emergency, I welcome that.

The Simon Communities of Ireland Locked Out report for April 2021, 18th study, provides a three-day snapshot. Of the areas studied, six had no properties available. Galway city had two within the limits of the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme. The Government's policy, and that of the previous Government, is predominantly HAP. Galway has a major housing crisis. People are waiting 15 years. A task force was set up in April 2019 and, notwithstanding good updates on Galway, it has not produced a single comprehensive report to say what the problem is and what is needed. We have any amount of land in Galway up to 2023, when it will run out. In the meantime, all those parcels of land are being developed by developers. We have the docks, maximising the value of the land there.

There is 17 acres that they are going to sell off to the highest bidder or to the Land Development Agency. We have Ceannt Station, with valuable land in the middle being developed by a developer. We have the Dyke Road. We have land at the airport. We have land at Nuns' Island. They are all being developed without a master plan. Can one imagine that? Each developer is developing its own site with a little tiny bit of social housing or affordable housing but no master plan or recognition of the emergency. There is so much that I could say but I will stick rigidly to my time. I am telling the Taoiseach that there is a housing emergency in Galway. I am telling him that the market-based approach is not working. We need a commitment to public housing on public land as an essential ingredient in a solution.

First, I am allergic to bluster and political rhetoric as well. There is sometimes no shortage of it on Deputy Connolly's side of the House either. Furthermore, I have been committed to public housing all my life. All of my political life I have supported the provision of public housing in whatever capacity I have served, and in building local authority houses. In this Government that was formed in the past ten months there is a very strong commitment to a large social housing programme. The funding has been provided, with €3.3 billion alone provided in this year's budget for housing. The issue now is to get the houses delivered and to get them built and in addition to get affordable housing built. Níl aon amhras ach go bhfuil géarchéim uafásach maidir leis sin. Admhaím é sin. Is é sin an fáth go bhfuil sé ina chéad aidhm ag an Rialtas i bhfad níos mó tithíochta a chur ar fáil ná mar atá againn anois mar níl a dhóthain á tógáil againn faoi láthair. Supply is a key issue. The council in Galway has responsibilities in terms of working towards the creation of a master plan. The whole purpose of the Land Development Agency is to create a facility whereby we can use public land for the provision of housing. Deputy Connolly's view seems to be that it should be 100% public housing. I do not necessarily agree that it should be 100%. I have no issue with mixed development on any housing site, either State-built or State-supported affordable, which should be facilitated on public land. Overall, we need to get more houses built than we are currently building.

Last year about 20,000 houses were built, the majority provided by the State. This year the target was about 25,000, of which 12,750 are to be provided by the Government. There is no great private sector out there at the moment. It seems the majority of private sector housing built last year was stand-alone single units across the country. There is a fundamental issue of getting more houses built overall across the mix between public sector housing, public provision and private sector provision. I do not mean funds or anything like that: I mean in the normal traditional way where houses were built that were affordable for people to buy as well, because I believe in home ownership. I do not know whether Deputy Connolly does, but I believe in home ownership and people's right and aspiration to be able to purchase houses at affordable prices. That is something I support. That is a huge challenge right now. It seems to me the fundamental problem facing the country is one of supply. To that end, the Government is committed to housing being the number one priority as we emerge from Covid-19 and to applying the same type of approach that we applied to Covid to get this housing issue sorted.

The fundamental problem is that the Government and previous Governments have commodified housing. They have decided it is a commodity to be sold and traded. Each Government one after the other has had housing policies backing that up to ensure that ordinary people would not be able to buy a house or rent a house. In Galway the task force has told us that the rent crisis has risen 97%. The Taoiseach should listen to that. It is more than 97% higher than in 2012, and we have two units, to use the language of the Government, available within the HAP limits. The Government's policies and ideology have led to a housing crisis from as far back as 2009 when it stopped construction. I was in Galway when we stopped construction. Many devices were introduced to keep things off the balance sheet, as opposed to saying housing is a fundamental human right. We need 100% public housing on public land. I make no apology for it.

Within that, we would have a mix. As I am over time, I will stop in mid-sentence. Maybe the Taoiseach might stop and actually reflect on what we are telling him.

I belong to a party that, since its foundation, committed itself to the provision of social housing. It cleared the slums in the 1930s from Dublin, Cork and other cities, and has always remained committed to the provision of social housing. That is the party I joined. It is my commitment; it is my philosophy. The Deputy has falsely presented my ideology. My ideology is not the marketplace and it is not to commoditise housing. I have just said we are committed to providing unprecedented funding to try to create the largest social housing programme in the history of the State. That is what our objective is as a Government. In addition to that, we are providing affordable housing for people who aspire to buy their homes. We will support them through the State supporting it through a variety of initiatives that the Minister has announced. We are also providing the first national cost rental programme, which will provide housing for rent at 25% below the market rate. These are important initiatives for people but to make it all happen, we need more supply. We need to get more builders out there, building more homes and building more apartments, and we need capital to do that. The State will not be able on its own to do it all, and that reality needs to sink in.