I have to ask what part of the term "affordability crisis" the Government does not understand. Earlier this month, we learned that house prices had surpassed their Celtic tiger peak. Never before in the history of the State have they been so high. Workers and families are locked out of homeownership, stuck in a never-ending loop of paying extortionate rents but never being able to buy a home. The housing disaster is causing untold human misery and pain. Nowhere is this clearer than in the record numbers of people who are becoming homeless. Homelessness is up by a massive 30% this year. Child homelessness has skyrocketed by 47%. Thousands of children are losing their childhoods while growing up in emergency accommodation. This is happening on the Government's watch and it is getting worse. People no longer believe the Government's promises on housing. Why should they? The reality is that under successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Governments, levels of homeownership have collapsed. The share of 25- to 34-year-olds who own their own homes more than halved between 2004 and 2019, falling from 60% to just 27%. That is Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil's record on homeownership - a generation of young people who no longer hold out any hope of one day owning their own homes. None of the Government's targets on affordable housing has been delivered. Last year it did not manage to build a single affordable home, not even one. This year will not be much better. The Cabinet sub-committee on housing has been told that targets for affordable and social homes have no hope of being met. Those targets were not ambitious enough to start with.

Faced with this disaster and litany of failure, what is the Government's response to the affordability crisis? It is not to build more affordable homes or to meet its own targets. Instead, it is to make homes even more unaffordable. The Government has decided to introduce a levy on concrete blocks that will add a further €3,000 to €4,000 to the price of a home. On what planet does this make sense? Does the Government really propose to place the cost of shoddy building work and defective materials onto the shoulders of people who are struggling to buy a home? Can the Tánaiste explain? Why has the Government not directly pursued those responsible for construction defects as it promised? Why are quarries that are producing defective materials still being allowed to operate? That is what the Oireachtas housing committee was told by experts a few months ago. Is the Government going to abandon its plans to impose this unfair levy?

I acknowledge that the housing shortage is an enormous challenge facing our country and people of all age groups, but particularly young people. It is the case that Ireland is a country with high homeownership. Some 60% or 70% of people own their own homes. That is a good thing. However, that is not the reality for people in their late 20s and early 30s, when it used to be. Probably only 30-something per cent of people in that age group own their own home and it would have been much higher 20 years ago. That is a breach of the social contract, in my view. If somebody works hard, plays by the rules and saves some money, they should be able to buy their home. That has become harder and harder over the past 20 years, and I acknowledge that.

The reasons for this are myriad. We have a booming population and smaller households. We had a collapse in the construction industry 12 years ago that we have still not recovered from. We are essentially running up an escalator that is moving in the other direction. We are making some progress. Approximately 25,000 new homes were built in the past 12 months, the highest figure in ten or 11 years and certainly since the current data were collected. We have had about 15,000 first-time buyers in the past year. That is really encouraging because it is the highest in 15 years. It is not enough, however. I would like to see the number of new homes being built closer to 40,000 or 50,000 and the number of first-time buyers close to double what it is now. That has to be our objective.

In the context of what we are doing about it, the response is to increase supply. We are doing absolutely everything we can to increase supply. Only yesterday, I had some discussions about that with people involved in the business. In the budget we extended the help-to-buy scheme, which helps people to buy their first homes. The Deputy will know from the independent report that it is the authors' view that the scheme has not had an upward pressure effect on house prices. That is not my view, it is the view of the independent analysis. All the more reason, I believe, to extend that, and it has been extended for two years. We are providing people with grants to do up old and derelict properties and turn them into homes. I really hope that turns out to be a big success. That also applies to sites in small rural towns and villages. We have the first home scheme. This is an affordable home scheme in respect of which we are getting really good feedback and strong interest. That scheme is helping to bridge the gap. If somebody can get a mortgage for €250,000 but the house they want or need to buy is €320,000, we can bridge the gap through shared equity. We are seeing a lot of interest in that programme. If it turns out to be oversubscribed, as it may well be, we should expand it if we can.

I asked three specific questions. They were not addressed at all in the Tánaiste's answer. I ask that he address them in his final response. There is no shortage of independent analysis which shows that Government policies in respect of housing are continuing to push up and fuel house price and rent inflation through myriad schemes that provide subsidies for developers. Every week I meet young people who, years after finishing school or college, are still living with their parents. These individuals want to be able to move out, become independent and get on with their lives. More and more people with skills that we desperately need in the country are emigrating in search of somewhere affordable to live. It is grossly unfair that the Government would seek to put the burden of paying for construction defects on people who are struggling to buy homes. The Government promised to go after those who are actually responsible for these costs. Why is this not being done? Why are the quarries that continue to produce defective materials still being allowed to operate? Defective materials are going into homes now. This will result in millions of euro of damage in years to come. Will the Government abandon its plans to introduce this very unfair levy?

I thank the Deputy. I have heard suggestions or allegations that there are still quarries producing defective materials. If that is the case, it needs to be dealt with, but the relevant authorities will need evidence of that. I am not sure if that is being provided to the relevant authorities. As the Deputy knows, any criminal prosecutions are not a matter for Government. We are a democracy. We abide by the rule of law. That would be a matter for the Garda, not for the Government.

The truth is, and I know the Deputy knows this, that it is going to cost hundreds of millions if not billions of euro to repair the homes affected by mica. We need to do that for the 7,000 or 8,000 families affected. We are also going to need to do something to help people who live in apartments that are defective. There is no quarry or two quarries that are going to come up with that kind of money. We need to find a way to recoup some of the cost. It is not fair that the taxpayer should cover all of the cost. We believe that the cost should fall, at least in part, on the industry. I have heard people suggest other methods of doing that and we are open to suggestions if the Deputy has other methods. I have head the suggestion of putting an additional levy on the profits of the construction industry. That would be passed on, too. They would increase their prices and increase their profits to compensate themselves for the levy. No matter what we do, when we decide to socialise the cost of something, the cost has to be borne in the round by society.