Fine Gael has been in government for 13 years and in that time the housing crisis has gone from bad to worse. It is not an accident. We now have a full-blown housing disaster because the Government has the wrong priorities and the wrong policies. As a result, many workers and families are simply unable to put a secure, affordable roof over their head. A defining feature of Fine Gael housing policy has been the enrichment of the private players - the big corporate landlords, the cuckoo funds and the vultures. I want to raise one area in which the Government's mismanagement and incompetence in housing looms large; that is its long-term leasing fiasco. Figures released to our housing spokesperson, Deputy Eoin Ó Broin, revealed the extent of the scandal, and it is shocking. From the Government that brought us the most expensive hospital in the world, the yet undelivered children's hospital, we now know it has agreed 9,000 leasing deals with property funds for the provision of social housing. The cost is a whopping €3.24 billion and the leasing agreements are to last 25 years. These leases do not come cheap. Many cost more than €2,500 a month, with the Government agreeing a 25-year lease on one Dublin property to the tune of €3,200 per month. These costs can only be adjusted upwards: they cannot come down. The leases on these properties are subject to upward-only rent reviews every three years and they are not limited by the 2% cap. It is a very sweet deal for the property funds.

The money forked out by the State on these 25-year deals is often more than the cost of buying the property outright. Here is the kicker: after handing over billions of euro in taxpayers' public money, when these deals end, the properties go back to the property funds. Wow; you could not make this up. This is a scandalous, short-sighted, negligent waste of taxpayers' money by Government. Instead of investing to boost State-owned social housing stock, it is paying out huge sums of taxpayers' money to big shot property funds for homes the State will not own. The incompetence here is off the charts. Once again under Fine Gael, the property funds are laughing all the way to the bank.

Tá polasaí lig ar léas fadtéarmach an Rialtais ag cur na mbilliún in airgead cáiníocóirí amú. Léiríonn sé arís go bhfuil polasaithe tithíochta mícheart ar fad ag Fine Gael.

In 2021, Government committed to the phasing-out of these long-term leasing deals for social housing by 2025; instead, it has performed a big and very expensive U-turn. It has locked the taxpayer into this madcap policy for the next two and a half decades. Far from phasing out this wasteful policy, it has turbo-charged it with bumper profits for property funds.

This puts up in lights that Fine Gael is never going to solve the housing crisis. The simple truth is it is not capable of it. Billions of taxpayers' money is spent on expensive leasing arrangements instead of ambitious investment to deliver public homes on public lands. We know 9,000 of these leasing deals have been made. Can the Taoiseach tell us today how many more are under negotiation? I challenge him to put a stop to them, stop wasting taxpayers' money and bring this bad policy to an end.

I thank the Deputy for raising the question. She likes to talk about our party's time in government. When my party came into government in 2011, fewer than 7,000 homes were built that year. Despite a global pandemic and a construction sector having to be shut down on many occasions, more than 32,000 homes were constructed last year alone. Later this year we will be in a position to revise housing targets upwards for the years ahead. We live in a country where 500 individuals or couples buy their first home every week. In the 12 months to February of this year, just under 2,600 applications were received for the first home scheme - a scheme the Deputy opposes. Work has commenced this year and continues every working day on 337 new homes across the country. Today, the Government decided to extend the operation of rent pressure zones for a further year until 31 December 2025. The Deputy likes to talk about failure but the statistics show significant progress being made for many homeowners.

On long-term leasing, let me be clear the phasing out of long-term leasing is well under way, with 3,500 social homes to be delivered through long-term leasing from 2022 to the end of 2025. Most of the target is already subscribed with proposals, tapering from 1,300 units in 2022 to just under 200 units in 2025. The managed phase-out of long-term leasing by the end of 2025 is under way. The annual leasing targets for local authorities are already reducing year on year because we are continuing to construct and bring about more social housing.

We have to approach this housing challenge using every lever at our disposal. Government should not and does not apologise for that. We need to use every possible avenue and pathway to deliver homes for our people, be they social homes, affordable homes or homes to buy. A variety of initiatives have been already put in place.

I assure the Deputy the Government's policy to end long-term leasing under Housing for All has not changed. Long-term leasing will be ended by 31 December 2025. However, leasing enables a portion of social housing need to be addressed in the short run. Surely it is a good thing that every day every one of us works to maximise the housing supply and options available to people who I am sure the Deputy meets when she goes across the country, as I do. Housing supply is very much going in the right direction and that provides Government with many more options in relation to delivering for people. There are reasons now for people to be hopeful of being able to own their own homes.

As I go across the country, I meet people who live with the consequences of the Taoiseach's housing policy. Here is what they experience: record rents they struggle to afford, record homelessness which leaves families and children in misery, a collapse in home ownership and an entire generation locked out of any real expectation of ever owning a home. Consequential to that, so many, particularly of our young people, are choosing to simply pack their bags and leave. That is the reality of the Taoiseach's housing policy on the ground. There is nothing short term about a 25-year lease. There are 9,000 of these wasteful arrangements. I have asked the Taoiseach to tell us how many more are under negotiation.

Far from winding down this policy, last year the Government had more leases than the previous year, so the data tell us it is moving in the wrong direction. These leases are costly, they are ineffective and they are, as I said earlier, glaring confirmation that Fine Gael and the Government will not solve this housing crisis; they will simply make it worse.

And your rhetoric certainly will not solve it either. Proposing to abolish all of the schemes that we put in place that help people to move out of the box room and into their own homes certainly will not make progress either.

I have answered the question very clearly in relation to long-term leasing and the Government's plan to end that by 31 December 2025. That is the Government position, it was the Government position and it remains the Government position.

Far from the Ireland that Deputy McDonald paints, here is the Ireland that many people looking to buy a home and looking to rent live in today. They live in an Ireland where their Government has just decided to extend the rent pressure zones for a further year. They live in an Ireland where there is a renters' tax credit in place and a wish to do more on that to help meet the cost of rent and help people save for a deposit. They live in an Ireland where 500 people a week now buy their first home. They live in a country where 337 new homes are going to construction every single working day, which is around 29,000 homes so far this year. They live in a country where there is help-to-buy, an initiative giving some of their own money back, which Deputy McDonald opposes. They live in an Ireland where there are more social homes being built now than at any time since the 1970s.