One of the major criticisms in the Housing Commission's damning report relates to Government waste of money. The report states: "Ireland has, by comparison with our European partners, one of the highest levels of public expenditure for housing, yet one of the poorest outcomes." Why is that the case? It is because the Government decided to pass the State's responsibility for housing people to private landlords. Last week, I referred to the €3 billion the Government is forking over to wealthy property funds to lease homes that neither the State nor the tenants will ever own. In one case, the Government is coughing up close to €1 million leasing one property in Dublin that goes back to the fund after 25 years. That is incredible incompetence. However, there is even worse.

Fine Gael came to office in 2011. Since then it has put nearly €10 billion of public money into the pockets of private landlords. It has done this through mechanisms such as the housing assistance payment, HAP, the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, rent allowance and long-term leasing. That money could and should have been used to build tens of thousands of permanent homes for ordinary people. Instead, the Government paid out €10 billion to keep workers and families in the private rental sector with very little housing security. Housing supports are necessary, but they must be short-term and temporary and not result in a never-ending bill for the taxpayer. The Government has turned what is supposed to be a temporary short-term support into indefinite, uncertain and insecure situations for many people.

The Taoiseach should know as well as I do what life is like for people on HAP. They talk about their rip-off rent leaving them with very little to pay other bills. They worry about being forced to move out with nowhere to go. The insecurity of their housing situation is always on their minds. It is stress, worry and constant uncertainty over the future. These workers and families should have the security of a permanent home. Of course, the Government does not see its housing failures. Families forced to go without permanent homes see it. A generation locked out of affordable housing sees it and young people paying extortionate rents see it because they live with the consequences of the Government's housing decisions every single day and they have had enough. They have had enough of the Government's rhetoric; they want delivery of and real change in the area of housing.

Tá Fine Gael agus Fianna Fáil ag cur beagnach €10 billiún d'airgead poiblí i bpócaí tiarnaí talún príobháideacha. Ba cheart an t-airgead sin a úsáid i gcomhair tithe ar phraghas réasúnta, rud atá ag teastáil ó dhaoine.

The Housing Commission has called for rental subsidies to be reformed to make them short-term temporary supports. It has called for a massive ramping up of the delivery of social and affordable housing because workers and families need permanent roofs over their heads. Putting €10 billion into the pockets of private landlords does not get the job done, and that is the bottom line. The Government's approach to housing has failed. It is simply recycling the same policies that got us into this mess in the first place. How can the Taoiseach stand over spending €10 billion to keep tenants in insecure housing when that money could have been used to build tens of thousands of homes for workers and families?

There are a couple of different aspects here, namely the Housing Commission report, to which the Deputy referred, and rental supports. Today, the Government will publish the Housing Commission report. In an effort to be helpful to the House and to inform debate on this, the Minister will also publish alongside it an initial assessment of where we are at with a number of the actions. This is a good thing to do and will allow us to have an informed debate. The Deputy will see that a number of recommendations are already under way.

The Housing Commission has been referenced a great deal in the past 24 hours. It is important to remind ourselves of what it was tasked to do. Its terms of reference state:

The commission will consider long-term housing policy post 2030 and examine how to build on the policy changes outlined in Housing for All and related Government policies.

The idea was to arrive at a long-term approach to housing and identify where we want to get to between 2030 and 2050, what housing policy needs to look at and the areas in respect of which resets will be required. That has been missed from any analysis or commentary so far today.

The Housing Commission report definitely contains some good ideas, but also some challenging ones. I think the Deputy will find those challenging and we will find them challenging. There will be a legitimate debate on them. There are issues relating to reference rents. Could that actually see people's rents being higher than in the rent pressure zones? It has worked in one European country, but how would it work in an Irish context? There are issues in respect of incentivising landlords in order to have a viable rental sector. Does the Deputy believe that is a good idea? Is it a good idea? Let us debate those issues as well.

On diverse funding, there is a need for Exchequer funding but there is also an acknowledgement that there is a need for more than just that. There are also disagreements and different points of view even among members of the commission on a number of the recommendations. This report will not just be challenging for Government - it is good to be challenged on the biggest societal issue we face - but it will also be challenging for the Opposition and for policymakers. Let us publish the report and have the opportunity to scrutinise it, and let us take matters from there.

This report is very useful and helpful, and I thank the commission for its work. While all of this is going on today, there are people who need help in the here and now. That is why I want people at home to know that on every working day in Ireland so far this year, 337 homes have commenced construction. Every single week, almost 500 people have drawn down mortgages for their first homes. Last year, we saw the largest number of social homes provided since the 1970s. This is what the graph looks like when talking about direct social house building in Ireland. The year 2011, the year my party came into government, tends to be referenced a great deal. From 2011 up to now, there has been a significant increase by any objective or fair analysis.

The Deputy has a point in the context of moving people from rental supports into secure tenures. I agree with her in that regard. That is why we need to continue to build more social homes, more affordable homes and more cost-rental homes. I get that. What is disingenuous, and I say this respectively, is to talk about the €10 billion to which the Deputy referred. She knows well that €3.2 billion of that was spent on rent supplement, €1.8 billion was spent on RAS and €3.5 billion was spent on HAP. Every year, you could paper the walls of Dáil Éireann with press releases and statements from Sinn Féin TDs asking us to increase the limits and to spend more.

Deputy Ó Broin should be very careful telling me what he does not do because I have the information here. Just to be clear on this, Sinn Féin has asked us to spend more than €10 billion on these supports. If you want to know why, it is because in an emergency while ramping up housing supply, we have to do something in the here and now. You say landlords; I say renters. You say €10 billion given to landlords; I say €10 billion given in rental support to people who come into your constituency offices and mine looking for assistance. It is news to me that you believe the money devoted to rent supplement, RAS and HAP was not money well spent at a time when the country had no money. Remember that when my party came into government in 2011, it was your party's position, when Gerry was in charge, to send the IMF home and tell them to take their money with them.

The point is that the Housing Commission report is damning. It is not neutral in its assessment of the Government's performance; it is damning and states very clearly the Government's failures. An important failing it identifies is the fact that the Government has turned what should be a temporary, short-term support into a permanent feature in the lives of many people. The Taoiseach did not dispute my figure; it is €10 billion since 2011. That is a lot of public money. That is a lot of potential bricks and mortar. That is a lot of permanent homes that ought to have been built. That is the point here. I will put the question again. How can the Taoiseach stand over that?

That is a clear measure of the Government's failure.

People who come to anyone's office who are on or who are seeking HAP are never filled with joy at that prospect. People on HAP are, in the main, pretty miserable and universally frantic with worry with regard to these matters. As it happens, only the other evening, I was talking to one young mother who is on HAP. She has two small, beautiful children. Her rent is €2,500 and she does not have a decent night's sleep. That is what her housing situation is. The Government has spent €10 billion keeping people in that situation that ought to have been spent on building affordable and social homes, but of course that is not the Fine Gael way.

That is a great line, but unfortunately the graph shows that you are wrong. Look at the increase in social housing building since my party came to office. You are, yet again, wrong.

Have a graph with need beside that. How many social homes are needed? It is twice what you are building.

Please, Deputy Ó Broin.

If a contest in fluency and verbosity was an Olympic sport, you would win a gold medal, but it does not build houses. We are not afraid to take more radical steps when it comes to housing. That is why we asked the Housing Commission to come up with ideas. How do you build a sustainable model that does not have boom and bust, with ghost estates one year and no housing supply the next? That is what we are doing. Deputy McDonald asked how we can stand over €10 billion. There was political consensus in this House that we needed to take steps to help people in the here and now, and Deputy McDonald led the charge. Deputy Dessie Ellis said, "RAS has provided many people with housing and allowed them to dig their way out of the poverty trap." Deputy McDonald is now criticising the expenditure on what a Sinn Féin TD said was a scheme that helped people to dig their way out of the poverty trap. Sinn Féin proposed legislation to make sure that people could get their HAP applications processed quicker, calling for the Minister for housing to increase the housing payment.

And all the time calling for an increase in social housing.

The Simon Communities said it must increase as well.

Where are the social homes?

Deputy Ó Broin-----

Let me tell you this. It is 153 days since Deputy Mary Lou McDonald told the people of this country that she would provide homes for €300,000 in Dublin. I ask the same question that I ask every day: how? Please tell us.

How do you do it?

Published it in 2021.

How?

We published it in 2021.

You advocated for €10 billion and now you are against it.

Go and read it on the website.

Deputy Ó Broin, it is beneath you to keep distracting the House in this manner.

I am being helpful to the Taoiseach to know where to find the plan.

It is beneath you, sir.

It is on the website.

I thank Deputy Ó Broin for his assistance

I call Deputy Holly Cairns.