Last weekend brought more very bad news for workers and families struggling to buy a home. Media reports quoted a series of housing experts predicting continued housing price hikes. This echoes similar commentary from the Governor of the Central Bank last week. One economist said of our housing market that it is on fire. Another warned that house prices could reach Celtic tiger levels. A third expressed the concern that house prices could continue to rise for the next four years. All of this is, of course, an indictment of the Taoiseach and Government’s failed policies.

Last Thursday during Leaders’ Questions, my colleague, Deputy Doherty, raised with the Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, the issue of rising house prices. By way of response the Tánaiste said that house prices are cheaper than they were 14 years ago and that, in any event, people were in a position to borrow more, in other words, to amass more debt.

This approach will only increase house prices further. One has to ask has the Tánaiste learned nothing from the past ten years? Does he not understand that more credit will mean more house price inflation, more debt for workers and families and more expensive housing? Does he not understand that increased debt means greater risk of mortgage default, repossession and, in worst case circumstances, perhaps homelessness?

I spoke yesterday to a family in Ringsend. There were three generations living in one home. They are by no means unique but I will talk about this family. One of the family members, a young woman aged 35 with a good job, had just moved back into her mother’s home for the fifth time. Because of the Government's failed policies, this woman and countless thousands like her feel that their lives are on hold. A whole generation has been left in the same situation. This woman and people like her do not need unsustainable levels of debt forced upon them; they simply need to put a roof over their heads. She needs a genuinely affordable home for her and her family.

Does the Taoiseach agree with the Tánaiste that house prices should increase further and that workers and families should go further into debt? Does he think that is acceptable or does he accept that house prices are too high? Does he also accept that heaping even greater debt on workers and families will force prices up and will not bring them down? All of this scenario, as it unfolds again in a housing crisis, smacks very strongly of the bad old days of Fianna Fáil in power.

The housing system is designed and delivered not for ordinary people, families or workers but by and for developers, and the banks too, of course, get their pound of flesh and line their pockets.

Will the Taoiseach clarify where he stands? Does he stand with his Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, who takes the laissez-faire approach whereby people should simply borrow more and buy more expensive housing, or does he accept that we have a crisis and need to deliver affordable housing?

I ask the Deputy where she stands. I listened to her sound bite after sound bite, slogan after slogan, which is really all about electioneering, is it not? The reference to Ringsend is no accident, obviously. We have all been out and about. I am very conscious of the significant issue that housing is. I have said repeatedly in the House that housing is a crisis. The Government is just about 12 months in office, dealing with a global pandemic that, unfortunately, impacted on house-building in 2020 by about 5,000 houses that we could have got built if there had not been a lockdown, and the lockdown of 2021 has impacted on us as well. That said, the Government has been very focused on building more houses, getting more supply into the market, which is the key issue, and doing it in such a way that we can make it affordable for people.

The Deputy knows the figures. About €3.3 billion has been allocated for housing alone in 2021. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage is introducing a shared equity scheme, which will help people in terms of affordability, and the Government enhanced the help to buy scheme last year. That has helped about 22,000 buyers get on the property ladder. That is 22,000 people who have benefited from that scheme, yet the Deputy opposed that scheme and then comes to the House and lectures everybody else about affordability and trying to make housing affordable. She cannot have it both ways in respect of her stance on housing.

The Deputy seems to want to exploit it to win votes but comes up with very few solutions to it. She opposes every measure the Government introduces to try to make housing affordable. She is opposing the Affordable Housing Bill and the measures the Minister is introducing, in regard not just to shared equity but also to the enhancement of the serviced sites fund, which will involve the State providing thousands of affordable new homes over the next year or two. She opposes an extension and expansion of Part V of the Planning and Development Act to designate a range of homes for first-time buyers.

The first ever cost-rental scheme, being introduced by the Minister and providing up to 400 units, will be expanded significantly in 2022 and beyond. We have brought about 2,500 voids back into use very quickly through the July stimulus funding of last year. The Land Development Agency Bill is going through the Oireachtas and will provide additional capacity, through the agency, to get more houses built - both affordable and social. The initial portfolio for the Land Development Agency can potentially provide up to 4,000 homes to 2025, yet the Deputy opposes that also.

Family homelessness, in the past 12 months, has decreased by 39% on the total recorded in March 2020. It is the lowest number of families in emergency accommodation since February 2016. In a short space of time, that represents very significant progress by the Minister on this issue. He is using every possible opportunity, including a suite of affordable measures and a strong social housing programme, to try to get additional supply into the market.

In sharp contrast to that, the Deputy opposes all the affordability measures that have been introduced to date and that will be introduced in the coming while, and on the ground her party has been opposing many housing projects that are shovel-ready. Thousands of houses have been rejected and opposed by her party, which is completely inconsistent with the stance she takes in the House.

Attacking Sinn Féin for a housing crisis Fianna Fáil created demonstrates just how threadbare the Taoiseach's approach is. The story I told of the woman and the family in Ringsend is not a sound bite. It is the truth. It is the reality they are living. One finds that reality throughout Dublin Bay South. The Taoiseach is on the doors and will hear it too in Sandymount, Pearse Street, Irishtown, Harold's Cross, Ranelagh and Rathgar. It is always the same and yet the Taoiseach is so out of touch with the harsh realities, he cites a shared equity scheme as evidence of his attendance to affordability matters, which is the very scheme that has been slammed and criticised by experts across the board, not just by Sinn Féin, because it is not the answer.

The answer is to double capital investment and for the State to really step forward to deliver 20,000 public homes every year to meet social and affordable need. That is not just Sinn Féin's view either. The Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, supports that view. Yesterday, the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA-----

The Deputy's time is up.

----added its voice to this call. If the Taoiseach is serious about it, and I urge him to get serious quickly on this, can he confirm that he is up to that task?

The young people I have met and continue to meet want to be able to buy a house at an affordable price, yet the Deputy opposes every measure, not just the one mentioned in terms of equity. The help to buy scheme helped 22,000 people to buy homes, yet the Deputy opposed it and continues to oppose it. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has also introduced a new affordable purchase scheme, with the State directly building affordable homes in addition to the help to buy and shared equity schemes. The Deputy has opposed that as well.

On the ground, where we had a mix of housing projects, particularly in Dublin city with more than 1,200 in north Dublin, Sinn Féin opposed the building of those 1,200 houses and likewise, hundreds more in Tallaght, Clondalkin and elsewhere. It just does not stack up. The Deputy seems to think she can come in here day after day and attack every other Member in this House in respect of housing and getting more houses built, when she consistently-----

Only the Taoiseach. I attack no one else-----

-----opposes project after project-----

-----but his Government for its incompetence and its failure of an entire generation. Shame on him.

The Taoiseach, without interruption.

-----for whatever reason and her fundamental position seems to be that her objective is to exploit the housing situation for her own electoral gain.

The Taoiseach's time is up.

It is party before the country all the time with Sinn Féin. That is, unfortunately, true in terms of the Deputy's political operation.

We need to move on. Our next contributor is the co-leader of the Social Democrats, Deputy Catherine Murphy.