The Taoiseach is facing an autumn of discontent in this country when it comes to his failure and that of successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments to address the housing crisis we face. This morning, the Raise the Roof coalition met to discuss dates for a major demonstration before the budget. The national housing and homelessness coalition has already set a date for a demonstration on the date of the reopening of the Dáil.

As a member of the budget scrutiny committee, I can tell the Taoiseach that my concern and the urgency of building those protests to demand public and affordable housing and protections for renters have been greatly strengthened by this morning's reports about the summer economic statement. We were due to meet the Minister for Finance tomorrow morning to discuss the summer economic statement. We are now not sure if that will happen because it is being reported there is a row in the Government about the amount of money that will be allocated for housing and debates about reducing deficits as against housing expenditure.

I want to be helpful. In fact, we have been very helpful over many years. I thought I would bring in our pre-budget submissions. I flicked through them. People Before Profit's submissions in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 called for €4 billion additional expenditure on housing. The ESRI is now calling for this precise figure. We also had the Raise the Roof demonstration at which time People Before Profit put a motion before this Dáil on behalf of that coalition, which was passed, calling for a doubling of the expenditure on public and affordable housing, in addition to controls on rents and action to be taken on vacant properties in this country.

We have set forward the demands. We have put forward figures year after year as to what should be spent on public and affordable housing and these figures are now being endorsed by the ESRI. The Government still fails to do it and if the reports are true, is still rowing about saying that is too much and we have a deficit problem. We have a much bigger problem. We have a dire housing and homelessness crisis.

There is a simple solution to this. We are spending in excess of €1 billion on housing assistance payments, HAPs, the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and leasing arrangements. It is €1 billion down the drain and into the pockets of vulture funds, landlords, property investors and so on. That €1 billion is supporting 100,000 tenancies of people who are mostly in insecure HAPs, RAS or other leasing accommodation, which could be pulled from them by these vulture funds and landlords, at any time.

There is a simple solution. Invest the €4 billion per year we need to deliver 20,000 public and affordable houses every year for the next five years. We would save all that money, own the property at the end of it, people would have secure tenancies and homes and we would generate revenue for the State with the rental revenue coming back to us instead of into the pockets of landlords and vulture funds.

First, 86% of landlords own one to two properties. As we lost approximately 3,870 landlords, who went out of the market in 2020, it is a contracting market. Supply is the key. You cannot take €1 billion out of the HAP tomorrow morning. The Deputy knows that. It is not that simple. There are tenancies tied up in HAP for many years now. You cannot simply replace that overnight or pretend you can. I do not think the Deputy should suggest that. Nor can you do that over the next two or three years but I will accept that the more we build, the less reliance on HAP and other forms of current funding in which the State is currently engaged in terms of rent.

I agree with the Deputy that we want to build more social housing. I said earlier the issue will not be resources in the context of the summer economic statement. There is no row. The issue will not be resources. The issue will be delivery across the system in terms of getting more houses built in the public sector, both social housing and on the affordable side, where the State is and will become involved through the Land Development Agency and other avenues, as well as through local authorities in terms of serviced sites funds, for example, in which the State is investing significantly. The Minister has undertaken an initiative in that respect.

The State is now the biggest actor in terms of housing with some €3.3 billion this year alone. The issue will not be resources; it will be delivery on the ground. We need supply. This year, we will be lucky to get to 18,000 units. Obviously, Covid-19 has had an impact. It has taken approximately 5,000 to 6,000 units out of what would have been built and likewise last year. Over the past number of years, we have not been at the level of house construction at which we need to be. Covid-19 has clearly has interrupted the momentum around house building but we can get it back.

All energies are now focused on getting more houses built. If we get more houses built, we can ease pressures on the rent market. The Minister's initiative to limit the increases in rent to the rate of inflation is significant and will make a difference over time. Key to this is getting the number of houses built in this country significantly up by the State and the private sector. That needs to happen. We need far more houses built than are currently being built. That means building up capacity, getting skills back into the construction area and using every possible avenue available to us to get more State social houses and affordable houses built. We are up for that as a Government. That is what we want to do.

The issue will be one of delivery. Across local authorities, people will have to swallow hard and vote for projects even if they do not measure up to the purity of a person's particular position on a given project.

The misguided and ill-fated Rebuilding Ireland programme to solve the housing crisis put forward by Fine Gael and Labour projected 87,000 HAP, RAS and leasing tenancies. It was a disastrous plan which has left us reliant on vulture funds and so on to deliver housing. Of course, they have not delivered. That is not their job. Their job is to make money and charge extortionate rents. That target was bad enough but does the Taoiseach know what we are up to now in terms of HAP, RAS and leasing tenancies? The number is 91,000, not including some of the approved housing body, AHB, leasing. It is probably around 100,000.

That is even higher than the mad target set under Rebuilding Ireland, completely reliant on vulture funds, corporate landlords and so forth.

Of course, one cannot pull the rug on all of that immediately. We are not suggesting that. We are saying that the Government's targets are not ambitious enough. The Government's target is for 12,000. By the way, last year local authorities and AHBs only built or purchased just over 4,000 - they did not build them all - and the target for next year is 12,000. Even the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, says that is not enough and that the Government needs to double the expenditure to get the figure up to about 19,000. We would say to go a bit further, but it is in the right ballpark. The Government is not committing to it and we hear that there is a row in the Cabinet about the expenditure levels. The problem is that the Government is not putting the resources forward and is not having the targets delivered. In the meantime, it could impose rent controls and stop no-fault or economic evictions which are putting people into homelessness.

The Minister has introduced rent controls in given areas and looked after people who were vulnerable in respect of rent. He has introduced new legislation to restrict rent increases. The Deputy knows that. However, he summed it up himself. It is not about resources. Of course, resources matter. The Deputy is going on about a billion here and a billion there, but my point is that it is about delivery. That will be the big challenge. The Deputy refers to another €4 billion or whatever, but it is about getting the capacity into the system to build more houses than we are currently building. What is key is that local authorities will have the capacity to build more social houses because they will have the resources to do so. That funding will be allocated to local authorities. The challenge for local authorities will be to get those houses built to the targets we want. It is the easiest thing in the world for the Deputy to say we should do 20,000 next year.

It is not just us. The ESRI is saying it now.

The capacity does not exist to direct build 20,000 social houses next year.

Stop building hotels.

It does not exist right now. It can happen the more we build, and, yes, we rely on HAP, RAS and so forth.

The time is up, Taoiseach. I call Deputy O'Donoghue.