There are 20 speakers and we have 30 minutes so I ask Members to co-operate. I call Deputy Doherty.

Yesterday the Central Bank forecast that the Government was set to miss its housing targets each year out to 2025. It expects that each year from now to 2025, the Government will fall over 12,000 homes short of its own target. The world and its dog knows the Government’s targets are woefully short of what is needed to meet demand. This is deeply concerning. The Government has missed its social and affordable targets since 2020. I am sure it will acknowledge that. If this abject failure continues, the housing crisis will deepen further, impacting housing need and the cost of housing as people look to rent and buy. The Minister, along with his party and Fine Gael, created this housing crisis. Our people cannot afford for it to worsen further. Does the Minister accept that the Government’s housing plan is failing and is actually designed to fail? Will he commit, as Sinn Féin has repeatedly called for, to the delivery of 20,000 public homes per year?

Housing output increased by about 45% last year. The data on commencements, completions, planning permissions and so on is more encouraging now than it was around six months ago. There is a lot of activity in the sector. The suspension of the development contributions, for example, and the water connection fees is making a real difference. It is making projects that might have been marginally unviable potentially viable. The feedback has been quite positive on that. There are many different ingredients here from the planning system, which has to be reformed, to funding. Home Building Finance Ireland is doing a lot of work on that to try to fill the gap that is there in some instances. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, is confident that we will meet the housing targets this year but we are also reviewing the national planning framework because the population has grown and the needs all over the country have increased significantly.