House prices, as the Tánaiste knows, are out of control and homeownership continues to be in decline. He and his partners have been in government for ten years and during that period, house prices have increased by 42%. In Dublin city the increase is a shocking 88%. Thanks to Fine Gael housing policy it is now more difficult to buy a home than ever before. Fine Gael claims to the be the party of homeownership and to represent people who get up early in the morning to go to work. However, under its watch fewer working people than ever can afford to put a roof over their heads. Couples are paying sky-high rents while struggling to save for a deposit. Single people, even those on good incomes, are completely locked out of the market. Those who are separated or divorced and have lost the family home are facing the steep climb of a 20% deposit. Families who lost their home after the crash are facing a future of insecure and expensive renting. Despite the Fine Gael's promise of making homeownership a reality it has done the very opposite. Pro-developer help-to-buy tax breaks and shared equity loans have pushed up house prices. Not a single affordable home was delivered through any central Government scheme while the Tánaiste was Taoiseach. Just a handful of affordable homes to by will be delivered this year. Budget 2022 included an embarrassingly low level of investment in affordable homes to buy next year.

As if all this was not bad enough, we now learn that house prices in Dublin are set to increase by as much as 25% in the coming years. Dublin City Council, as part of its development plan review, commissioned KPMG to assess both the future need and cost of housing in the city. The report revealed by Killian Woods in the Business Post last Sunday was truly frightening. Average house prices are set to rise every year from now until 2028 to a staggering €575,000. You would need an income of €148,000 to buy a home at that price. Even if you availed of the full shared equity loan payment of €90,000 you would still need a household income of €122,000 to afford that home. At these prices, the vast majority of people will not be able to buy a home in the capital. Meanwhile, the same report says rents in Dublin will continue to soar. By 2028 the median rent could be as has as €2,412 per month, according to the report. For this to be affordable, you would need a take-home pay of over €7,000 per month. This report is based on the most up-to-date data from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, and the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI. It was published after the Tánaiste and his colleagues announced their new housing plan and proves beyond any doubt their housing policy is a failure.

My questions are very simple. Do the Tánaiste and the Government accept the findings of this significant KPMG report and what are they going to do, that they are not already proposing, to bring house prices down so working people can afford to put a roof over their heads in the capital in the years to come?

I thank the Deputy. I am afraid I have not had a chance to see the report yet. I have seen some media coverage of it but I have not read it myself. It is not my practice to comment on a report until I have had a chance to read it or at least read the executive summary, which I have not at this stage. It seems the premise of the Deputy's question is the report must be correct and therefore things are definitely going to turn out that way. I definitely do not accept that. How things turn out will depend on a number of factors, including what happens with our economy with respect to wages, employment and many other things and also what happens with housing policy. So I am not sure whether that report is predictive or not but it certainly does not have to be.

One thing I absolutely agree with the Deputy on is that house prices in Ireland are very high. They are too high and are out of reach for very many people who are not able build a home. The most effective thing we can do to bring prices under control is additional supply. Supply on its own will not bring down house prices but we will not bring down prices without additional supply because there is a very high demand for housing in a country with a growing population and a population in which new households are being formed all the time. Supply is therefore the crucial element of bringing house prices under control but not the only element. We need additional supply because of the huge deficit of housing we have due to our having had a prolonged period where very few homes were built due to the collapse of the banking system and the construction sector over ten years ago. We need homes of all types. We need social housing for people on the housing list. That also helps free up homes for others to rent and buy. We need public housing, such as cost rental, which is now happening for the first time. Government-led affordable housing schemes which were not happening years ago are happening now. There is additional private housing as well. We need homes of all types, including one-beds, two-beds and more but we especially need one- and two-beds, given the shape of our population relative to the type of housing available.

It is encouraging we are seeing an increase in housing supply in the past 12 months, notwithstanding the fact we are experiencing a pandemic and there have been restrictions on supplies and construction. About 30,000 new homes have gone to construction in the past year. That is really encouraging because we know from reports we need to get to around 35,000 or 40,000 additional homes per year for supply to meet demand. It seems we are getting there. It will be a while before we get there but it seems we are getting there. I know the Deputy will want to join me in recognising the fact we have seen a very big increase in the supply of new homes in recent years, notwithstanding the objections of some to many of those developments.

This Government is committed to homeownership, as is my party. We have set a target of trying to get back to 70% homeownership in the State. Sinn Féin does not agree with that target. If it does then I am sure Deputy Ó Broin will say so. How do we do it? There is the help-to-buy scheme, which he opposes. I disagree with him. Between 20,000 and 30,000 young people, families, couples and single people who have been helped to get their deposit with that scheme would not agree with the Deputy. It would be a shame if a Sinn Féin-led Government were to take that away because we think it has helped many people to buy their first home. The shared equity loan scheme is going to become a reality. The Deputy may oppose it but people in his constituency and mine will vote with their feet in their hundreds and take up this scheme. Instead of paying a lot of rent every month they are going to be paying a mortgage towards a home they can buy. Another area is the Rebuilding Ireland home loan or the local authority home loan. This gives people a mortgage when they cannot get one from the banks. Again, that is a very successful scheme and one we need to expand. The fourth aspect is of course supply. Ultimately, we will not get house prices under control or increase homeownership unless we have adequate supply. That is why I appeal once again to the Deputy's party to stop opposing housing developments and to support them, because that is what people need.

I thank the Tánaiste. What he does not seem to understand is the KPMG report is based on this Government meeting the targets outlined in its recent housing plan. What the report, which is based on the most up-to-date information from the CSO and ESRI and all the Government's target projections for social, affordable and private housing, is saying very clearly to the Government is that even if all that happens house prices are still going to increase by 25%. I appreciate it is not the Tánaiste's portfolio but I am genuinely surprised somebody who prepares Leaders' Questions did not give him some indication of whether the report is worthy of consideration or not.

The central problem here is the Government is not doing the one thing it needs to do. It is not investing enough in the direct delivery of genuinely affordable homes. Next year, only €130 million will be invested by this Government in affordable homes. Its target is 1,250. We need about 8,000 genuinely affordable homes every year to reverse the trend in this report. It gives me little comfort, and I suspect it gives the people who are desperate to own their own home little comfort, that while the Tánaiste claims to be on their side everything the Government is doing, as confirmed in this KPMG report, shows house prices will continue to rise. Will the Government at least consider reviewing and increasing the direct investment in affordable homes so the paltry targets in its new housing plan can be revised upwards?

Government investment in housing happens in many different ways. There is investment in forms of public housing like, for example, cost rental, which the Deputy did not mention in his remarks. That is now a reality and a scheme people can avail of. We need much more of that. The Deputy will see affordable housing schemes led by Government being rolled out across the country over the next few months. The first have happened already. There is also investment in social housing.

I welcome that it is now widely acknowledged that we are seeing record levels of investment in social housing by this Government. It was not that long ago, in 2015 or 2016, when only 600 new social homes were being built in the country every year. That was when my party came into Government and Deputy Simon Coveney took over the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government. Under this Government, approximately 10,000 new social homes are being provided every year, possibly even more. That is a step change. We are seeing housing waiting lists go down and hundreds of people and families receiving social housing every month. That is not just for their benefit. It is to their benefit as it takes them off the housing list, but it also has a wider societal benefit because it frees up other homes for people to rent and buy. It is, therefore, an investment that assists everyone.