In a report published this morning, the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, has called on the Government to double public investment in public housing. It has called for investment in the region of €4 billion annually. It states this would deliver 18,000 public homes to meet not just social but affordable housing need for working families.

Of course, Sinn Féin has been saying this for years. We have outlined how the Government must double capital expenditure on public housing and embark on the largest investment programme in public housing in the history of the State. This is the scale of what is required to tackle the crisis we are in. It is not just us. Fianna Fáil, the Tánaiste's partners in government, voted in favour of a 2018 Dáil motion from the Raise the Roof campaign. Raise the Roof is, as he will know, a grassroots civil society-led movement with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions at its front, and supported by almost all of our housing and homelessness organisations and activist groups. That motion called for a doubling of capital investment in budget 2019 and the delivery of at least 20,000 social and affordable homes that year. Of course, back in government, Fianna Fáil has done what it does best and abandoned that commitment. There was no meaningful additional capital spend in the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage's first budget above the commitments already entered into by his predecessor, Eoghan Murphy. There is only €160 million extra in capital spend for this year - €124 million to deliver an additional 593 social homes and a paltry €35 million to deliver just over 400 affordable cost-rental homes. I said at the time and say again that that budget was underwhelming, unclear and wholly inadequate.

Fine Gael, the Tánaiste's party, has been in government for ten years and during that period not a single affordable home to rent or buy has been delivered by any central government scheme. This will be the first year of ten years of Fine Gael government where some affordable homes will be delivered, but how many? There will be only 90 affordable homes to purchase and just 440 affordable cost-rental homes for renters. Meanwhile, social housing delivery targets remain low while Government expenditure on rent subsidies, including housing assistance payment, HAP, rental accommodation scheme, RAS, rent supplement and long-term leasing is set to hit a staggering €1 billion this year.

After ten years of failure by the Tánaiste personally, as well as by his party, will he, on foot of this recommendation from the ESRI, give a guarantee that budget 2022 will include a doubling of direct capital investment by the State in the delivery of affordable homes for working people - public homes on public land delivered by local authorities, approved housing bodies and other not-for-profit agencies? This is what the ESRI is urging the Government to do today. It is saying this is absolutely necessary if we are going to get a grip on this housing crisis. Will the Government abandon its failed pro-developer and pro-big investor policies of the past, listen to the expert advice and the advice from Opposition and civil society and put public money into public housing on public land for affordable housing for working people?

As is often the case, the best way to respond to the Deputy's rhetoric and ideology is with some facts. These are the facts. We have increased Government investment in social housing tenfold. In 2016, when my party got the brief and Deputy Coveney became the Minister with responsibility for housing, only 600 social homes were built in this country. By 2020, it was more than 6,000. These were homes built by local authorities and approved housing bodies with public money. That is a tenfold increase since 2016. The budget for housing this year is the biggest ever and more than a third of homes built in the State this year will be built by the State. One would probably have to go back to the 1980s, 1950s or 1960s to see that level of State involvement in the housing market.

On a per capita basis, our investment in social housing is much greater than is the case in Northern Ireland, where Deputy Ó Broin's party has been in government for 20 years and has a very poor record indeed. It is probably the worst record on this island when it comes to housing policy. Our current target is that we should build and provide approximately 12,000 new social homes this year and every year into the future and several thousand more in terms of affordable for purchase and cost rental as well.

On the ESRI report, I have not had a chance to read it, though I have seen the headlines. As I understand it, the ESRI proposes a big increase in capital spending on social and public housing and that we would set a target of approximately 18,000 houses per year. It would not be easy to get to that overnight but it might well be a good target to aim for over the course of this Government. However, I have not seen what breakdown the ESRI proposes. Deputy Ó Broin used the term "public housing" but, as he knows, public housing is much broader than social housing. If that includes public housing, cost rental and affordable for purchase housing, that may well be doable. A target of 18,000 may well be the right figure and may well be where we get to. If it is 18,000 social houses alone, that is a different question. That would be all on-balance sheet borrowing, which is not recoverable and much harder to do. We will take a look at the report; we will give it full consideration. I want to see the breakdown between social and other forms of public housing being recommended by the ESRI.

I note the institute proposes we do this by running a bigger budget deficit of maybe 1.5% of GDP a year to invest in our society, in housing and healthcare. I agree with that approach, by the way. I would like to go back to the old orthodoxy whereby borrowing for capital expenditure is more acceptable than borrowing for current expenditure. I am not sure we can do that but I would like to. However, we must bear in mind that at the moment we have a deficit of 5%, so we are already borrowing more than the ESRI and the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, IFAC, think appropriate. As such, it would have to be explained, or we would have to talk together about how we would manage to get from 5% down to 1.5% and still spend more on housing and other things. As I said, the Government will reflect on the report and read it. I notice that most of the recommendations being made by the ESRI are potentially contrary to other recommendations made by the institute and by the IFAC. It is good to have so many advisory bodies but with so much advice, it is often contradictory. We will take all that into account as we develop the revised national development plan, NDP, which we hope to have ready for July and the housing for all document which will be the Government's new housing policy to replace and build on the Rebuilding Ireland plan.

I have to say to the Tánaiste that this is no laughing matter. Fine Gael has been in government for ten years and not a single affordable home to rent or buy has been delivered by any Government scheme. Why is that? It is because its policy is all about big investors and big developers. It is about sweetheart deals for cuckoos and vultures and sweetheart land deals for big developers where 60% of the homes are to be sold at prices of €400,000. That excludes 90% of the population; that excludes working people. For years we have been urging the Government to double capital investment from the €1.4 billion this year up to €3.8 billion or €4 billion to deliver 20,000 public homes. Our preference is 12,000 social homes and 8,000 homes split between cost rental and affordable purchase.

What world is the Tánaiste living in, where he comes in, smirks and jokes about different advice?

The Government is in charge and controls the budget. Invest the money in public housing on public land so working people can get the homes they can afford instead of giving tax breaks to big investors or sweetheart land deals for fat cat developers.

I thank the Deputy. Again, I can only respond with the facts. A third of all new homes built in the State this year will be social housing and public housing paid for and built by the State. One must go back to the 1980s or the 1950s and 1960s before we could see those kinds of figures replicated. The average home in Ireland last year sold for approximately €275,000 and much affordable housing has been built in the past ten years in Ireland. Perhaps it was not through Government schemes but this has been done through the private sector with the help of Government schemes.

To turn the Deputy's words back to him, what planet is he living on? All we ever hear from Sinn Féin is pure populism. Everything should be free; free housing, free education and free healthcare but at the same time it will abolish all taxes as well. There will be no carbon taxes, local property tax-----

Invest and build in new homes.

How can anybody possibly believe that sort of populism?

It is what the ESRI recommends. Invest and build the homes.

The Deputy must interrupt me because the truth hurts. The party's populist nonsense, which it continues to promote in Ireland, is about abolishing taxes while making massive spending increases.

It is not populist nonsense. Is the ESRI report populist nonsense?

If it had been possible, the party would have done it in Northern Ireland over the past 20 years but it has not. The party's record on housing there is absolutely appalling.

In ten years not a single affordable home has been built by the Government. Shame on the Tánaiste.