Right through the election campaign, the Taoiseach and Government Ministers claimed that 40,000 homes would be built in 2024. We now know that this was a wildly exaggerated claim. In fact, the actual number built last year was almost 10,000 short of that figure. That 40,000 was a bogus figure. Earlier today, the Taoiseach rejected the suggestion from Opposition parties that he was deliberately misleading the country by repeating this figure of 40,000. That raises a very serious question, however. Did he and Government Ministers repeat that assertion throughout last year in good faith? Did he repeat it while genuinely believing that number would be achieved? If so, it smacks of incompetence. It certainly would not lead anyone to have confidence in his Government's commitment to build the 300,000 homes it has promised to build by the end of 2030 without changing Government policy, which has patently failed. We in the Labour Party put forward constructive proposals to ramp up housing supply but the Taoiseach rejected them.

The Deputy's party put forward a very poor housing programme.

It was very constructive.

There was no fleshing out of the national State construction agency it proposed. There is no blueprint and no paper. It would have had disastrous results given the length of time it would have taken to establish and how out of touch it is with working practices and the norms within the construction industry today. It was an ill-thought-out and very poor approach. That is why people were not persuaded by it. I answered the question the Deputy has asked in the earlier questions. I will take this opportunity to ask her to withdraw her assertions that this democracy is similar to Belarus or Russia. She has made that assertion twice in the last 48 hours. It is insulting. She did it on Sunday night and she did it again today or yesterday. There are 1,200 political prisoners in Belarus. That is the kind of cheap and superficial commentary that I think is disgraceful.

I am happy to respond to that.