The renters out there who are fearful that they will never be able to afford their own homes need not worry. The Government has a plan to auto-enrol them in a pension so that they can raid the pension fund to continue to pay rack rents when they reach their mid-60s. According to the Irish Independent, a confidential Cabinet memo stated that the new auto-enrolment pension scheme is "particularly important" because "an increasing number of older people will need sufficient income to meet rental costs during their retirement years". I do not know what planet the Government is on, but if anyone thinks the answer to the housing crisis of 2022 is modest pensions that will accrue to people in 20, 30 or 40 years from now, is it any wonder we are in the mess that were in?

Renters reading the Irish Independent today will have been tearing their hair out. Hundreds of thousands of them do not have pensions because they cannot afford one while paying exorbitant rents of around €2,000 a month and struggling with a very acute cost-of-living crisis. The declining rates of home ownership are a great concern. The rate has fallen from 79% in 1991 to 68% in 2016 and will certainly be revealed to have fallen further when the new census is taken and we see the results. It is also the case that the average age on which someone buys their first home has increased from 27 in 2006 to 35 now. If people are taking eight additional years to buy their home, they are spending up to an additional €192,000 in rent. Meanwhile, when they do eventually buy, Ireland has the highest mortgage rates in the EU while the average house price is €300,000 nationally and more than €400,000 in Dublin. All of this additional money that is sunk into housing costs means there is nothing left over for anything else. Keeping a roof over your head is in the here and now and trumps any concerns about a pension arrangement.

While I welcome that the Government has plans to address the pension time bomb, we have a housing time bomb that exploded years ago. The two are linked because living mortgage-free in retirement is a completely different proposition than paying market rents, even on a good pension. We have a housing crisis that can only be solved if affordability is seriously tackled. There are no signs from the Government that it is doing this. Will the Taoiseach confirm it is not the intention of the Government to force workers to raid their pensions to pay for rental costs? What is the Government’s plan to ensure renters will still be able to pay their rents when they are in retirement?

In the first instance, I am somewhat taken aback by the commentary on auto-enrolment. Surely everyone in this House agrees we should as a State and society deal with poor pension provision for workers in this country, both those who own homes and those who do not own homes. The auto-enrolment scheme does not discriminate when it comes to home ownership and pension provision is not good enough where we are today as a society. I disagree with the Deputy in her reference to short-termism. This has always been the problem where pensions have always been put on the long term and decisions and have been deflected because of a lack of the sense that we had to deal with the here and now. It is essential for workers and for a proper society into the future that we develop a pension system that is complementary and supplementary to the State pension system. I am delighted that the Government has taken a very decisive step to get on with auto-enrolment in the decision we took yesterday. That is the type of reform and decision-making this Government is about in implementing the programme for Government we have laid out. We will not be deflected from that.

This scheme is irrespective and does not differentiate between whether a person owns a home or does not. The most significant issue for us for auto-enrolment is the dearth of cover for so many people. Our supplementary pension cover has remained static over the past 20 years, hovering around 50% of the total working age population. This rate reduces to less than 35% when the private sector is considered in isolation. There can be no argument against doing the right thing and it will have challenges for all concerned but it is the right thing to do.

On housing and rent, I have said and acknowledge the crisis that housing presents to us today. We have produced the Housing for All strategy some months ago before the end of last year. It is a clear strategy that has financial resources behind it, and it will take a number of years to get to the critical mass of housing that we want built throughout the country, but supply is the key to this. I have no doubt about that. We cannot go on with 20,000 houses a year. We certainly need 33,000 to 35,000 and perhaps more houses per annum and they have to be of a mixed type.

I mentioned the 31,000 homes that have commenced construction in 2021. That is the highest since 2008. That is important and is a 42% increase year on year, but that is based on the previous year which, of course, was affected by Covid-19. Some 1,580 cost rental homes is the target to be delivered this year and I believe cost rental is something that can be accelerated to give real options to people. The new national first home affordable purchase shared equity scheme will also assist in the purchase of homes.

Auto-enrolment, of course, is something that is to be welcomed and, in fact, I said in my contribution which the Taoiseach must have missed.

However, it was also reported in the Irish Independent that a confidential Cabinet memorandum stated that the new auto-enrolment pension scheme is particularly important because an increasing number of older people will need sufficient income to meet rental costs during their retirement years. Can the Taoiseach confirm that this is the purpose? This matters. Currently, there is a generation of people who are struggling just to keep their heads above water because of the cost of housing, particularly rental housing. They are the same people who will be asked to pay the auto-enrolment and who, when it comes to their pension, will then pay to keep a roof over their heads because they have not been able to purchase. The two things are linked.

Yes, we need more delivery and supply, but it must be affordable. History has a habit of repeating itself if we do not learn lessons from it. Looking at the 80,000 houses built during the Celtic tiger years, where did that deliver affordability?

Time is up, Deputy.

It was not numbers that delivered affordability. In fact, the crash reduced house prices. Affordability is something deliberate and I do not see that in the Government's plans. There is no evidence of it.

I am not hearing the Deputy's solutions to it. Is she suggesting that we do not build thousands more houses? Of course, we must build thousands.

Affordable.

Yes, affordable. We are developing schemes to make houses more affordable. It is very challenging because of the fact there were 20,000 houses per year in 2020 and 2021. That is not going to make the inroads we need. That is why we have to get to 33,000 to 35,000 per annum, if not more. On the delivery side, and I know I annoy people when I say this, we need to get real in terms of delivering housing schemes much faster than we are. Everybody needs to get real. There is no point coming in here every week, having a go, saying this is the great crisis, it is terrible and the Government is not doing enough, while we go on with business as usual on the councils across the country in terms of planning for schemes and so forth. We think it is business as usual and there is no problem objecting to that, amending that and changing that, yet the Deputy comes in here attacking, attacking, attacking. That is not going to wash anymore. It is a crisis.

You have been saying the same thing for ten years.

We want to deliver houses much faster than currently is the case, and we need co-operation across the board to enable us to do that.

On auto-enrolment, that is a comprehensive piece of work in which the Department of Social Protection and the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, have been involved.

Thank you, Taoiseach. We are out of time.

All I will say is that the fundamental rationale underpinning it is to give pension coverage to workers in our society that supplements the State pension and that will enable them to have a quality of life in their later years. That is it.

Not if they cannot pay their rent.

Can Members please adhere to the time allowed for these matters? I call Deputy Nolan on behalf of the Rural Independent Group.