Speaking on "Morning Ireland" last Thursday, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, conceded that the Government will not meet its housing targets for this year. He stated:

In relation to direct social housing building, the target for 2022 is 9,000. ... We do not believe at this juncture that 9,000 will be met.

I take it that he stands over that comment. His remarks at least shed some reality, in contrast with the assertions made by the Taoiseach and the housing Minister that the Government is on track and its housing policies are working.

Despite the Taoiseach's repeated refrain that housing is the single biggest social issue facing the Government, what we see is failure to plan and failure to deliver. The Government promised 9,000 social homes this year. By the end of June, it had delivered only 1,765. It promised 4,100 affordable homes this year. It has delivered only 925 to date. This means the Government will miss its social and affordable housing targets for the third year in a row. Those are targets, by the way, that do not come close to meeting the level of housing need in society. In addition, the Government refused to introduce a ban on rent increases. These are rents that are crippling tenants, are at record levels and are continuing to rise. Meanwhile, homelessness is at an historic high. Even with the ban on evictions, it is likely to rise. Child homelessness has increased by a staggering 51% since April 2021. It beggars belief that any member of the Government could claim its housing policies are working. Does the Minister, Deputy McGrath, accept not alone that the Government is missing its targets but, in fact, that its entire approach to housing has failed?

To make matters worse, we hear the Government is €2 billion behind in its annual housing spending in its capital spend. That is not likely to change in the next six weeks. That means €2 billion sitting there while people watch housing prices go through the roof and know they have no chance of affording their own homes, while young mothers and fathers and their children squeeze into the box rooms of their own parents' homes and while families languish for years and years on council housing waiting lists. People caught up in the never-ending housing crisis will be shocked and angered by this. It highlights again that the Government is incapable of bringing the required urgency to deliver the homes that are needed.

We now see young people voting with their feet when it comes to housing. Young people throughout Ireland are leaving because they cannot put a secure, affordable roof over their heads. It is now time to deliver. Conas go bhfuil an Rialtas ag tarraingt na gcos le €2 billiún de chaiteachas tithíochta i lár géarchéime tithíochta nach bhfacthas riamh roimhe? Seo géarchéim ina bhfuil ár ndaoine óga ag fágáil na tíre i gcomhair seans le saol níos fearr a bheith acu thar lear.

The Minister is in charge of public expenditure. He holds the purse strings. How is sitting on €2 billion for housing happening when so many people are in desperate and unprecedented housing need? How can the Government claim it is doing everything it can to end the housing crisis, while sitting on this huge sum of money? It is failure to plan, failure to deliver and, by the Minister's own acceptance and admissions, failure to meet what are at best low-level targets. Fail, fail, fail.

This Government has acknowledged from the very beginning the scale of the challenge we face as a country in housing and the provision of accommodation for our people, whether it is private housing, public housing, cost rental or affordable purchase. We have prioritised investment in housing since coming into office in the summer of 2020. That is delivering results. Do we believe that more needs to be done? Absolutely. The challenge is still immense but it is a challenge we will meet.

The overall target by way of housing output of all forms in the current year is 24,600 in the Housing for All strategy. We are confident that this number will be significantly exceeded. That will be the highest number of new homes built for a very long time in our country. The Deputy raised the specific issue of social housing. The target in the Housing for All plan, by way of total additions to the social housing stock in the current year, is 10,500. That is principally made up of new builds. The point I will make, in answering the Deputy's question directly, which I always seek to do, is that we currently estimate we will build approximately 8,000 new homes but that will be supplemented by purchases and leases of new homes. In our view, that will bring us close to, if not in a position to reach, the overall target of 10,500 social housing additions to the stock in 2022, which is the highest number in this country for a long number of years.

We are tackling the housing challenge using all the levers at our disposal. As a Government, we are partnering with local authorities and approved housing bodies, and getting back to delivering public housing at scale for the first time in a generation. That is the right thing to do. Sinn Féin Deputies are welcoming new developments as they are being opened throughout the country, which they are welcome to do, in addition to turning up at the launches of the Housing for All schemes all over Ireland-----

Photograph, photograph.

-----because thousands of people are being provided with accommodation in our country as a result of the investment we are making. In addition, we are investing in affordable housing for the first time in well over a decade, including new affordable purchase schemes which Sinn Féin opposed. The Land Development Agency is now on site and is delivering homes for our people, both public housing and cost rental homes. Again, Sinn Féin opposed the establishment of the agency. We also have the help-to-buy scheme, which is there to support first-time buyers whom we acknowledge are struggling in many instances to bridge the gap between the amount they can borrow and the cost of purchasing a new home in Ireland today. Close to 28,000 new homes were built in our country in the 12 months to September 2022. There were almost 21,000 house completions in the first nine months of this year. This is already exceeding the total for 2021, which was approximately 20,500. We are projected to reach more than 26,000 new homes by the end of the year.

We acknowledge there is much work yet to be done but we are working very closely with the local authorities and the approved housing bodies to deliver new homes across the country. We also need the private sector to continue to deliver homes for our people. We will see Part V affordable homes come on stream again, for the first time in a long time, because of the change in the law brought in by the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien.

It is challenging for many people to purchase a home. Many are caught in that rental trap. The Central Bank's macroprudential rules have made some change and will assist people in that regard. I assure the Irish people that tackling the housing challenge is a top priority of this Government. We are providing the investment. It is delivering results. We will double down on that to make more progress for our people.

I noticed the glee on the Government benches as Members congratulated themselves on housing delivery. The Taoiseach was in attendance at one of those great launches, at which one of the families who got the keys to their home had been on a social housing waiting list for 14 years. That is a generation. That is the time it takes to raise a family. As we meet and speak here, there are families, as I said to the Minister earlier, who are raising their children in the box rooms of their parents' homes. There are kids and families in bed and breakfast accommodation, hotels and so on. There is a sense of desperation everywhere.

I asked the Minister about the undershoot of €2 billion in respect of capital spend on housing the Government is sitting on. How in the name of God is the Government falling €2 billion short on its spend on housing and sitting on that €2 billion in circumstances in which people have been on housing lists for a decade and more, living in hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation and desperate, with no real prospects? That needs to be explained by the Minister.

There is no €2 billion in capital underspend on housing. As the Deputy knows, it is always the case that the final quarter of the year is the period in which there is the largest delivery. That is when schemes get closed out, accounts get done and drawdown of payments happens. There will be no such underspend in respect of housing capital this year. Any underspend, as the Deputy knows, is subject to a carry-forward provision whereby it can be carried forward, subject to an overall rule in respect of 10% of the ceiling for that Vote into the following year.

The truth, which the Deputy does not want to hear, is that Sinn Féin has opposed all the schemes that are making a difference for people who want to buy a home in Ireland, whether it be the help-to-buy scheme, the work of the Land Development Agency or the work of the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, in bringing forward the First Home shared equity scheme, in respect of which over 600 eligibility certificates have been provided at this point, because Sinn Féin seems to have a calculation in mind that it is in its political self-interest to sustain the housing crisis.

Get out of here.

On this side of the House we are focused on doing everything we possibly can to resolve it-----

That side of the House created it.

-----and to ensure that people who want to purchase a home are given direct support by the State to do so.