When launching Croí Cónaithe last year, the then Taoiseach described the scheme to advance the delivery of new apartments as a crucial strand in the Government's housing response. A Department of Public Expenditure and Reform document tells a very different story. It warns that the size of the initiative is too small, too complex, and has had a low take-up from developers. It also reveals a staggering capital underspend of €1 billion in the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage's 2022 budget, with social and affordable housing output well below target. Just 6,500 of the 9,000 social homes promised will be delivered and the affordable homes delivered will be 78% short of the 4,100 promised. This is the third year the Government has missed its public housing targets and failed to spend capital budget allocations. When will we see the very necessary emergency response to the housing crisis?

We do not have the exact figures in yet for 2022, but we will have them in the next few weeks. They will show that we met, and in fact exceeded, our overall housing target for last year, with more new homes being built in Ireland since probably 2010 or 2011. In relation to social housing, we have not built perhaps as many as we would have liked or as many as we had intended, but we will have built and provided more new social housing last year than any year in decades, and perhaps even since the foundation of the State.