I return to the biggest immediate challenge facing the Government, namely housing. Despite the bluster from Government, it has admitted that last year it built nearly 10,000 fewer homes than it previously stated. We all hear from our constituents in communities around the country that housing is the single biggest issue facing families and individuals. We hear this from people who are homeless, from families who are living in housing insecurity and from people who cannot move out of their childhood bedrooms because they cannot find affordable homes anywhere in their neighbourhoods.

Tomorrow morning, the House will debate a Labour Party motion which sets out both a clear pathway for the radical actions necessary to address this housing catastrophe and our proposals for active State intervention to address this matter and ramp up delivery. We are offering a radical reset of housing policy, as the Housing Commission has called for. However, the Minister and his Cabinet colleagues have agreed a countermotion which will reject our ambitious proposals for change and which instead, it seems, will offer only more of the same - more of what has not worked to deliver homes for people.

The only suggestion of change is from the Taoiseach, namely to weaken protections for renters and provide more money to developers, with no active role for the State. Can the Minister explain why the Government is so set on repeating the mistakes of the past? Why is it intent on repeating the same mistakes which led to missed targets and lack of delivery under for Housing for All and which created the conditions that led to the last property crash under the watch of the Minister's party?

We are all clear that the Minister's party and Fine Gael misled the public on housing delivery in the general election. It is only 12 weeks since we were in the thick of that campaign. In the pitches to the public from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, there were claims that construction would exceed targets and that 40,000 homes would be built. There was nothing about ending RPZs or about prioritising tax breaks for developers. Fine Gael even committed to retaining RPZs. In its manifesto, the Minister's party committed only to continuing to review them.

On the same page Fianna Fáil boasted about capping rents using RPZ legislation. There is no indication that it will be pulling the rug from underneath renters and removing the safety net that is there.

The Taoiseach has warned Government TDs to brace themselves for a raft of unpopular decisions on housing, but renters, who we have all heard from every day since the Taoiseach's pronouncement on Sunday, are bracing themselves and facing the fear that their monthly bills will further skyrocket. In his new role in public expenditure, the Minister must be concerned about the Taoiseach's threatened transfer of public money from investment in necessary State infrastructure and beefing up the Land Development Agency to instead delivering off-the-cuff handouts to developers. Handouts to developers did not work in the past; they made matters worse.

Can the Minister confirm that the RPZ laws will be renewed this year? What evidence does he have that tax breaks will lead to any increase in housing supply?

I thank the Deputy for her question. To set out the context on housing supply, it has significantly increased since 2020, with 130,000 new homes delivered in that period. Everyone on the Government benches and across the House was disappointed with the final numbers for 2024, which were less than what we expected. However, it is not true to say that we missed our Housing for All targets. The overall net position over a period of three years shows 29,000, 32,000 and 30,300 units delivered, a combined total that exceeded the overall target over three years.

We need to look to the future to drive significant supply of homes across our economy. The volume of homes built in the past five years represents the highest delivery for many years. Notwithstanding the short-term fluctuation in delivery, the current delivery pipeline is very strong. Work commenced on 60,000 new homes in 2024, an increase of 84% compared to 2023. It equates to work starting on an average of 239 new homes every working day of the year. We are determined that the uplift in supply of recent years must be sustained, with a longer term upward trend maintained. That is why the outgoing Government set new housing targets of over 300,000 new homes over a series of years.

I want to be clear in my role as Minister for public expenditure. We agreed to a review of the national development plan to accelerate infrastructure delivery in our economy in water, energy and transport to unlock future supply and intensify the level of housing delivery in our economy. When we see the capital outworking of that, I expect we will see increased allocations for housing and an increased focus in the State's role in housing supply. If we are to deliver 50,000 new homes per year, we are going to need more private investment to do that work and complement the State's role in housing. We all need to be honest about that.

The State has a central role, but we need to ensure that we unlock future private investment to drive increased supply across our economy. That means examining all of the policy options that are available to Government to ensure that we drive housing supply and increase affordability for young people in order to give them an opportunity to buy and own their own home.

There is a severe shortage of supply for renters in our economy. As I said in response to Deputy Ó Broin, we have said we will conduct a review with the housing agency. There is no predetermined outcome to that review. It will be evidence-based and examine how we protect renters and increase the supply and development of rental accommodation in our economy. That is a necessity to ensure that people who want to rent a home today and future renters in our economy have the opportunity to go on to rent. If you go on to daft.ie or any other sites, it is very difficult in terms of the supply of rental accommodation. We need more homes for the rental supply in our economy.

The Minister spoke about an uplift in housing delivery, but the only uplift likely this year it seems is an uplift in the rents people are being forced to pay. People tell all of us that they can barely afford to meet their monthly rents. Can the Minister give certainty to renters that RPZ laws will be retained or that there will be an equivalent safety net? There is nothing coming from Government except uncertainty and, it seems, tax breaks for developers.

We know from the ESRI that tax breaks for developers do not increase delivery. Rather, they lead to a transfer of tax revenue from the State to developers without any significant effect on supply. That is from ESRI research. I again ask the Minister whether he will accept our Labour motion that sets out clear evidence-based policies to provide a radical reset in housing policy and ensure that we see an increased level of supply of homes and protections for renters who so badly need them.

If the Deputy was really interested in effecting Labour Party policy, she would have stayed longer in the government formation talks.

He would not accept our proposals.

He had no interest.

I knew from all the engagement we had, she was more interested in posturing over there than she was in playing a constructive role in government. We were open to their proposals.

They were not.

No, they were not. They were not.

She wanted to set up a State construction company, which would take years. It would take years.

Let me be clear: our central objective, in any review of housing policy, will be to increase supply and to unlock and address all of the levers of supply which are open to Government to ensure we can drive affordability for young people and to address the severe housing shortage that is there. We will not deliver on housing unless we have a significant uplift of supply across our economy. That means the role of the State will be strengthened. It will be strengthened when this Government reviews the national development plan. We also need to assess how we address other levers of supply - and that is what we will do - while protecting renters and protecting the vulnerable in our society.