I welcome the opportunity to speak today on the work of the Housing Commission and the significant work the Government is doing and will continue to do to implement the commission’s recommendations.

Before I do so, I wish to say I am honoured to have been afforded the opportunity to take on the housing brief. I look forward to contributing to an area which has the potential to significantly enhance the lives of people in our society.

This afternoon I will update the House on the work ongoing in my Department since the publication of the report of the Housing Commission. I am delighted to take the opportunity to speak about the housing policy agenda more broadly. I will set out some of the key reforms we will progress to address the immediate challenge of boosting housing supply while supporting those policies and structures needed for a sustainable housing system and a supply of new homes in the country that it needs into the long term.

This twin-track approach of short-term pragmatic actions in tandem with longer-term deliverables to underpin the sustainability post-2030 speaks directly to the broad direction of travel proposed by the Housing Commission. It will be a challenging task to marry the two and - the House may not agree fully on this - mine and the Government’s primary focus will be on achieving these ends.

The report of the Housing Commission has been much referenced in this House since it was published last May. As I take up the housing portfolio, it is opportune to set out the scale of work that has been progressed over some months in response to the commission’s report. I also want to outline how the commission’s work has been reflected in the programme for Government, how the Government continues to examine in detail the commission’s proposals and how it can build on the solid platform laid by Housing for All over the last three years. Before continuing, I want to acknowledge and reflect on the achievement the commission’s report represents. I commend and thank the commission members on a challenging job well done. Each of them brought drive, commitment and passion to the task set. The commission was established in December 2021 to consider long-term housing post-2030 and examine how to build on the policy changes outlined in Housing for All and related Government policies. The main report is the output of more than two years grappling with and developing solutions to a myriad of complex and interlinked issues. The commission was unquestionably diligent in this work. The members brought a wealth and breadth of experience and expertise, adopting a meticulous evidence-based approach and consulting extensively with the public, housing providers, tenants, younger adults and other sectoral stakeholders, all of which is reflected in the depth of the commission’s consideration which can only really be appreciated when one examines the report. It is more than 400 pages long, covering ten thematic areas and including more than 80 recommendations and around 500 actions and subactions.

At a high level, the commission considered that housing should be affirmed as a unique national priority supporting social cohesion and economic development and with a focus on expressing our collective aspirations for society. I wholeheartedly agree with the commission in this respect and will work tirelessly to make this happen. More specifically, the commission proposed a housing deficit should be addressed through emergency action and cleared over ten years. It recommended a radical reform across all aspects of the social housing system. It set out a suite of actions for the private rented sector and it issued a call for a greater focus on outcomes with an enhanced ambition embracing a different risk- and decision-making environment across the administrative system.

Again, with some exceptions and a different emphasis in some areas, there is much that resonates with me and my vision for the future of the housing system.

These points and others are captured by recommendations in the report and I will touch on as many of them as time allows during this debate. There is much to be considered in the report and there are many areas where implementation may be complex or have potential consequences elsewhere, but I can confidently say we are scoping and progressing many of the actions. Some have been committed to in the new programme for Government, while others are reforming thinking on the step change needed to build on Housing for All and to deliver 300,000 or more new homes by 2030 and 60,000-plus per year thereafter.

Building on the engagement my officials had with the commission last year, I spoke to the commission’s members recently to thank them, hear their views and invite them to engage further with me and my Department as we strive to implement their proposals. A point made by one of the members at that meeting stuck with me, principally that the report is best considered as an ongoing resource for ideas and solutions, rather than as one that can be quickly consumed and implemented. Of course, we must act with urgency in the face of the crisis facing many households, but we must not lose sight of the longer term need as we do so.

There has been much commentary suggesting we have not engaged seriously with the commission's report. Much of this narrative is uninformed and I would like to put it to bed here today by outlining the work under way since the Government published the report last year. My Department began examining the report almost immediately after it was published, assigning dedicated resources for this purpose. We moved quickly to task the Housing Agency to support this work, not to reimagine the commission's consideration but to help examine costs associated with them, identify priorities and consider implementation timelines, resourcing implications and so forth. The commission rightly considered these matters to be more appropriate for the Government. This is, in itself, a complex and time-intensive exercise and it is taking time.

Reflecting the urgency needed, however, we are focusing first on those recommendations identified as key by the commission, as well as those others that can potentially have the greatest impact on supply in the short to medium term. This work is continuing at varying stages of progress. At the same time, we are mapping the full suite of recommendations and a direction of travel for substantial longer term reform. This includes work that is already under way in my Department but to which the commission's recommendations speak directly and indirectly. There are many commitments in the programme for Government relating to housing and infrastructure informed wholly or in part by the commission's report. We are taking these commitments forward and incorporating them into the broader work under way as appropriate.

The commission highlighted the need for a joined-up approach on infrastructure that supports housing development. The Government has considered how this might be best achieved, focusing on actions that can have an almost immediate impact, and to this end has committed to establishing a strategic housing activation office. This new office will report directly to me. It will focus on enabling infrastructure to support public and private housing development and providing solutions to infrastructure blockages. In this regard, the commitment draws on the commission's recommendation for a housing delivery oversight executive, co-ordinating related investment across key utility providers and intervening to unblock infrastructure issues on the ground. Backed by the required capital funding, it will play a game-changing role in enabling housing delivery in the near term and into the future. The office may not be exactly as the commission envisaged on day one, but it reflects a pragmatic approach to quickly achieving the underlying objective.

I agree with the commission in that speed is of the essence, especially if we are to maximise delivery this year and secure a robust pipeline in the years hereafter. I hope to bring proposals for establishing the office, including its role, functions and staffing, to the next Cabinet committee on housing and thereafter to the Government for a decision. I am mindful of the need to move quickly, but I am also keenly aware of the importance of securing the right person and team to lead and support it. Critically, the office must be led and staffed by persons with the necessary expertise, access to the key actors and a depth of understanding of the system in order that it can hit the ground running and have an immediate impact.

Allied with this, the new towns and cities infrastructure investment fund is a cornerstone commitment of the programme for Government, again aligning with commission proposals. The fund will be scoped and designed as part of the review of the national development plan. It will enable more strategic investment in infrastructure, land assembly and derisking of strategic sites for residential development in towns and cities. Importantly, while the decision is still to be made, it could provide funding firepower to facilitate the work of the strategic housing activation office.

We have also committed to establishing land activation units in local authorities to ensure a more proactive approach to identifying opportunities for development. This will build on the recent investment in local authority resources and help tackle important issues such as vacancy and dereliction through the vacant homes officers and town regeneration officers. The commitment will implement a key action in the commission's report, enhancing the powers and resources of local authorities and supporting and enabling the delivery of sustainable levels of housing. Relatedly, my Department is working with local authorities to review resources of housing delivery teams to secure future staffing needs and ensure the optimal structures for housing delivery are in place. Key in this regard will be developing, ring-fencing and retaining greater specialism in the sector relating to direct-build housing. The Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, will speak later to the intersection of the Housing Commission's report and the significant reforms under way in our planning system.

Since Housing for All was published in 2021, almost 107,000 homes have been added to the national housing stock through new builds, the completion of historical unfinished developments and vacant properties being brought back to use. Much still needs to be done but we have achieved a lot, with a step change in delivery in recent years. Last year's dip is certainly disappointing. I remain optimistic, however, that with appropriately targeted action by the Government, many of the more than 100,000 commencement notices lodged over the past two years will translate to new home completions and a general upward trajectory in the supply of recent times can be sustained. All our efforts must now focus on achieving the targets in the programme for Government, delivering more than 300,000 new homes by 2030 and building to 60,000 per year by the end of the period.

The commission's report contains a range of estimates for housing demand projections, including estimates of unmet housing demand. I welcome a range of views and the testing of assumptions underpinning the Government's housing targets, just as I would also test those put forward by the commission. The commission estimates unmet demand of between 212,500 and 256,000 homes. I understand there was much debate among the commission's members regarding this estimate, which is natural, given that any estimate of unmet demand necessarily relies on judgments regarding underlying assumptions, such as the rate at which Ireland's average household size will converge with that of peer countries. Given that we currently have a younger population than many of our peers, the commission's judgment on the average Irish household size in the event of a less constrained housing market underlies its estimate of unmet demand.

I agree with the commission that clearing unmet demand is a priority action and must be addressed within the decade. I also agree that estimates of housing requirements must be regularly assessed and reassessed, and I expect to revisit the targets in 2027. Our revised targets, underpinned by expert, peer-reviewed research and modelling, are credible and ambitious. Scaling up capacity to deliver 60,000 new homes by 2030 will be an enormous challenge but it is one that can be achieved by, among other things, appropriate supports to grow the construction industry's capacity year on year. Growing capacity will establish a platform from which housing supply can be ramped up to the higher levels needed after 2030 and provide a platform to deliver on the commission's recommendations of addressing unmet demand within the next ten years. I await further analysis by my Department to underpin new targets for each tenure as part of the next housing plan. We will consider all views on these estimates but whatever the overall number, the point remains we must seek to grow supply significantly for all tenures while doing so in a sustainable manner.

Scaling up the use of modern methods of construction is a key Government priority which can help speed up delivery with achievable reductions in delivery times of between 20% and 60% for projects through the effective maximisation of scale. In line with the commission’s report, my Department is working with the industry to develop a standardised design approaches study to build awareness of the benefits and opportunities for the sector presented by standardised housing design. A timber and construction steering group is also focusing on areas such as regulation, public procurement, research and public awareness to increase the use of timber in construction.

Modelling by the Department of Finance estimates that delivering 50,000 homes on average per year to 2030 will require some €20 billion in development finance each year. The State is doing more than ever in this space, directing an unprecedented level of public resources at housing, and will continue to do so. The level of investment required in the long term, however, cannot be solely the responsibility of the State. It will also require considerable levels of private investment. Some of this private investment will come from our domestic banks, and we will work with them to ensure they are appropriately using their lending capacities to support the development of housing nationwide.

It is an unassailable fact, however, that the majority has to be secured from international sources. It is clear from last year's completion figures that there has been a significant drop in apartment delivery, rooted in the almost complete retrenchment in institutional capital since 2022, which has severely impacted on the delivery of new homes. Institutional investment, such as that from Irish and other European pension funds, will be key to generating the additional supply of new homes we need.

There is no getting away from this. Uninformed commentary unfairly labelling all private investment as harmful impacts our ability to attract this investment and provide the additional homes we need. Critically, protecting renters and attracting finance for home delivery are not mutually exclusive. Securing this type of investment will benefit today's renters and those wishing to avail of accommodation in future. To do so, we have committed to establishing the stable and predictable policy approach necessary to attract and retain private investment and this will inform our thinking on the review of the rent pressure zone, RPZ, regime. This review will have regard to the need to appropriately balance the interests of landlords and tenants to support a sustainable, long-term model for rent price regulation. My Department has asked the Housing Agency to review the operation of rent pressure zones, which will fully consider the Housing Commission recommendations in this regard. The review will be completed by the end of March, after which I will consider proposals to bring to the Government prior to the ending of the current RPZ controls on 31 December this year.

I stress that we can both protect renters and attract finance for new homes for rent at the same time. Increasing the supply of properties for rent benefits all renters and that is why it is a key ambition for the private rental sector. The commission has made significant and far-reaching recommendations that will alter the operation of the social housing system as we currently know it. For example, it recommends retaining and recycling all social housing moneys within the system for maintenance and future delivery. It recommends merging social housing with cost-rental housing, based on the principle of a cost-recovery rent and it recommends increasing social and cost-rental housing to 20% of the national stock.

The commission acknowledges the long-term needs from these recommendations and the need for significant appraisal and consideration before any substantive decisions can be taken. I am committed to considering these recommendations as part of the need to establish a better platform from which housing supply can be increased to meet the need arising in the long term. This consideration will be reflected in the new national housing plan, although the need for appropriate appraisal and consideration to enable decisions to be taken in relation to these seismic, longer term ambitions may take some time.

The approved housing body, AHB, sector will continue to be indispensable partners in delivering and managing social and affordable housing as we work towards further scaling up delivery and a more sustainable longer term system. The Housing Commission reinforced the crucial role of AHBs and recommended policy and structural reforms to maximise the potential of the sector while addressing risks and impediments. My Department established the AHB strategic forum in 2024 to collaborate on a future vision and reform roadmap for the sector. The forum was informed by multiple sources, including the findings and recommendations of the commission. We are currently finalising the forum's report and expect a review of the recommendations arising in the coming months and for the agreed priority actions to be incorporated in the new housing plan.

Affordability and home ownership remain at the heart of the Government's housing policy. We have been very successful in growing a new affordable housing programme from a standing start in 2021. To date, more than 6,000 approvals have been issued under the first home scheme. In addition, nearly 1,300 local authority affordable purchase homes have been purchased by first-time buyers across 16 local authorities. I met representatives of the Land Development Agency this week and heard about its pipeline, which will see the agency deliver a volume of homes on a par with the largest home builders in the country, a significant proportion of which will be apartments.

We have worked hard to build a pipeline across the affordable purchase and cost-rental areas. I note the commission's support for the affordable housing framework we have put in place, as well as its proposals to build on this and regularly review the functioning of these schemes as the market evolves. My Department is working on ten-year specific breakdowns of the housing targets for the period ahead. This work will inform the targets for social, affordable and cost-rental houses over the next five years. I welcome the recommendation from the commission to deliver cost-rental housing on a greater scale and we have made some good strides in this space recently.

From 2021 to the end September last year, we delivered 2,640 cost-rental homes through AHBs, local authorities, the Land Development Agency and the cost-rental and tenant in situ schemes. Affordable housing schemes, including cost-rental, are starting to deliver at scale and this momentum will continue as the pipeline is developed. The programme for Government commits to building more cost-rental units and embedding it as a permanent tenure.

Addressing vacancy and dereliction and bringing existing properties back into use as homes is a key priority for this Government. The Housing Commission draws particular attention to this important area. It notes that while the overall vacancy rate has declined in Ireland, there are high levels of vacancy in some rural areas and it remains a serious issue. The Government has also been taking action in areas highlighted by the commission, including ensuring vacant homes officers are in place across all local authorities. The vacant homes refurbishment grant is a key enabler in reducing vacancies and is proving extremely popular, with the number of grant payments rising from 100 in 2023 to 1,349 by the end of last year and equating to 1,449 vacant properties being returned to use as homes. We will continue to push initiatives in this area in line with programme for Government commitments and informed by the ideas of the commission. All of these commitments and targets will inform discussions for the forthcoming national development plan review, as will the programme for Government commitment to invest additional capital in Uisce Éireann. This investment is essential if the scale of the necessary housing development exceeds what is provided in the Uisce Éireann capital investment plan underpinning its strategic funding plan from 2025 to 2029.

The ambitions I have set out, particularly around addressing the immediate issues of increasing the supply of new housing, rely on securing the appropriate levels of capital funding and a strengthening of the whole-of-government approach introduced under Housing for All. Maintaining the considerable levels of collaboration and joined-up thinking across key Government Departments with our delivery partners and sectoral stakeholders will be critical. I am committed to continuing and deepening this collective approach in the coming years. Funding will also be critical. Without funding the required solutions, we run the real risk of exacerbating the challenges we already face. Work is already starting on the review of the national development plan and this is due to be complete by July. The last national development plan review recognised the importance of housing as an issue of national importance and I will again make the case for its critical importance. I recognise these will be challenging discussions given the many important competing priorities drawing on a finite level of available resources, but I am optimistic the outcome of the review will reflect the focus and measures needed to meet the challenges ahead. Of course, the Exchequer and the national development plan cannot be the sole contributor. Other sources will also be important. The incoming Apple moneys and the revenue from the disposal of State shares in AIB can also contribute to the investment needed in critical areas, acknowledging the many expectations of my ministerial colleagues in that regard. I will engage regularly with the Minister, Deputy Chambers, over the coming months to secure the moneys needed to deliver them. Securing the appropriate funding will be a key factor in defining our progress over the coming years.

I thank the Housing Commission for its work which, as I have set out, is having a significant influence on the Government's work. I acknowledge much still needs to be done to implement the recommendations. I will continue to consider the report as I work through the actions to boost supply in the immediate term and further develop my plans to deliver on the longer term ambition of a functioning housing system that meets the needs of all.

I join the Minister in thanking the Housing Commission for its work. I commend each member of the commission on their efforts by any objective measure. The commission's report is an impressive piece of work and is having the intended impact on informing the policy debate and providing innovative ideas and solutions to the challenges we collectively face in the housing space.

The Minister, Deputy Browne, has set out the thrust of the report and the key areas of focus of the Government's work that are being informed by the report. I intend to speak about the intersection of the commission's report and the reform of our planning system. The commission's work ran concurrently with a significant body of work to consolidate planning legislation and update the planning policy framework. Many of the ongoing areas of reform under way reflect the areas of interest of the commission. I will highlight progress on some of the key reforms in train to ensure the planning system can continue to support the delivery of housing across the country.

The Planning and Development Act 2024 was signed into law last October. It followed a complete fitness check of the Planning and Development Act 2000 to identify the necessary reforms required to deliver the optimum planning system to meet the challenges we will face in the coming decades. The Act will bring greater consistency, clarity and certainty to the planning system. It will build on and enhance the existing plan-led approach to development whereby the national planning framework and the new national planning statements will set a very clear policy direction to reflect the Government's priorities for the future development of the country.

This will in turn be reflected in regional strategies and local development plans, the latter being extended to ten years to allow for a more strategic planning approach at local level.

Enhanced policy clarity will inform decision-making on the ground with greater certainty on expected outcomes for those seeking to undertake development, as well as for communities and interested parties. The Act will also introduce statutory timelines for decision-making and the streamlining of judicial review processes to ensure that delays will be reduced and investment decisions can be made with an expectation of when a decision on a planning application may be forthcoming.

Under the Act, An Bord Pleanála will be renamed an coimisiún pleanála and its organisational structure is being changed to better meet its challenges and workload. In addition, a new advisory board will be introduced to the Office of the Planning Regulator. The commencement of the Act is a task of considerable scale and complexity and is a key priority of this Government. It will be commenced on a phased basis to facilitate the transition from the arrangements under the current Act to those under the new Act. While I can appreciate the sense of urgency to commence the Act, we must ensure that the planning system continues to function efficiently and effectively while transition is under way and that those engaging with the system, including within the construction sector, have a line of sight in terms of when key changes will come into play.

My Department has also been engaged since 2023 in the process of revising the national planning framework, NPF, to ensure that the planning policy framework is up to date and reflects the Government's priority objectives, particularly in relation to housing, climate change and infrastructure. The final draft revised NPF is now ready for approval by Government. Subject to that approval, it will be introduced into the Houses of the Oireachtas for final approval. The revised NPF will provide the basis for the review and updating of regional, spatial and economic strategies and local authority development plans to reflect matters such as updated housing figures, projected jobs growth and renewable energy capacity allocations, including through the zoning of land for residential, employment and a range of other purposes.

The revised NPF sets out a need to plan for the delivery of approximately 50,000 additional homes per annum every year until 2040. The key next step is to discuss the spatial distribution of housing needs through updated planned housing requirements on a local authority by local authority basis. This will enable local authorities to zone more land for housing purposes to address emerging need and demand. It will also enable strategic planning for transport-orientated development in and around our five cities to support the delivery of new sustainable communities at brownfield and greenfield locations along existing or planned high-capacity public transport corridors. Given the urgency and scale of the challenge facing us, it is essential that the updated housing requirements can be incorporated into the planning process and system as quickly as possible. As such, it is intended that local authorities will be required to update their development plans in line with a clear policy direction and accompanying methodology.

The planning system must also be properly resourced with the requisite skill sets in place. New legislation with statutory decision-making timelines, the need to review and update development plans, as well as the important role the planning system has in tackling land activation, vacancy and dereliction, all bring this need into sharp focus. Recognising this, the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, published a ministerial action plan for planning resources last year. This action plan provides a detailed roadmap to increase the pool of planning and related expertise needed to ensure the planning system is fit for future needs. These actions are already being progressed and will be driven by a steering group put in place to oversee the plan's implementation. The action plan, supported by recent investment in ring-fenced resources for local authority planning staff, prioritises the staffing of the local government sector, in particular. The positive impact of increased resources is already visible within An Bord Pleanála. This has brought about significant improvements in performance since the Government investment in the doubling of resources in the organisation. Of course, we need to see the remaining backlog cleared by the board as urgently as possible.

Sanction has been granted since October 2023 for an additional 213 permanent full-time posts in local authority planning departments. My Department is continuing to engage with the local government sector regarding the next phase of staffing.

Earlier this month, my Department made a joint submission, with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and the Irish Planning Institute to request the inclusion of the occupation of town planning officer on the critical skills occupation list. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment is considering this request.

As the Minister rightly pointed out, there has been a step change in delivery in recent years, despite the disappointing dip in completions that was experienced in 2024. It is clear that while we experienced a 4.6% increase in the delivery of scheme houses, we simultaneously saw a reduction of 24% in apartment completions. This clearly impacts the 2024 output. We will need to focus on enabling the delivery of apartments again, including a focus on reversing the retrenchment of institutional capacity which has provided the funding for much of the apartments built in our cities in recent times, while also investing in the Land Development Agency, LDA, to unlock apartments at scale, which is what is in its pipeline.

The immediate focus of Government is on using all levers at our disposal to build on the increase in supply seen during the term of Housing for All and to strive to reach the credible and ambitious target of delivering more than 300,000 new homes by 2030. The planning system will play an integral role in these efforts to achieve our targets and our focus will be on implementing the reforms I have set out and leaving no stone unturned in seeking additional levers within the planning system to aid these efforts to provide housing options to persons such as those I outlined last week.

I congratulate the commission again on the work it has done and the impact it is clearly having an Government thinking. There is much alignment with the planning reform under way and the views of the commission. We will continue to consult the commission's report as we consider other opportunities to realise our ambitions on housing, which I know we all share across this Chamber.

On behalf of Sinn Féin, I thank the individual members of the commission and its secretariat and all those other individuals and professionals who assisted it in its work over the two and a half years. This is, as the Minister of State said, an incredibly significant piece of work. It is on a par with the National Economic and Social Council, NESC, Housing in Ireland 2005 report. It is a benchmark piece of work which I would like to think all of us will return to on a regular basis as a source of ideas as well as new thinking.

I also welcome today's debate but, of course, a debate is not enough. I hope we get the Government's support when the Oireachtas housing committee is formed to ensure we can further this discussion in a more detailed form by inviting in former members of the commission and others to interrogate, scrutinise, talk and think through the implications of all of its recommendations for housing policy, irrespective of whether we agree or disagree with them.

There is a role for the individual members of the commission. I urge the Minister to discuss with them what they can do to promote their work, beyond the Dáil Chamber or the committee, with wider sectors, whether through engagement roadshows or other kinds of activities.

Before I talk about the detail of the report, I will make a comment on the response of the outgoing Government and the incoming Administration with respect to the work of the commission. The outgoing Government's response was deeply disappointing. When it was forced to publish the commission's two reports, it falsely claimed, in my view, to be implementing the majority of the recommendations. That is something the Minister knows caused quite a lot of annoyance to commission members as well as to others. While I appreciate the Minister telling us there has been a lot of work done on the interdepartmental working group, we would like some detail. How often has it met, what has it done and is there documentation that can be released to Members? Likewise with the Housing Agency because, for the life of me, I have no idea why the Housing Agency was asked to do costings for anything.

That is the function of the Departments of Finance, public expenditure and reform, and housing. Again, however, because the Housing Agency is an experienced body, if the Minister will share further details about its work with us, that would be helpful.

In the absence of any of the detail to which I refer it is hard to judge what has been done at all. Of course, the Government has spent nine months running scared in respect of this matter. There was no launch of the commission's report. The outgoing Minister was given the task of circulating the report to members of the Oireachtas housing committee. He refused to do that. As stated previously, there was no promotion. It was also striking that there was no reference at all to the Housing Commission report in either Fianna Fáil’s or Fine Gael's election manifestoes. I strongly challenge the position of the Minister that the substance, let alone any of the detail, of the commission's report is in the programme for Government, but that is a discussion we continue to have. I welcome that the Minister met with the commission shortly after taking office. That is a positive. I welcome that the incoming Government has allowed us to have this debate, but the proof will be in the extent to which the commission's report is implemented.

I will talk about the headline recommendations of the commission's report and then go through, in what little time I have, many of the sections. It is interesting that the most important part of the commission's report - its devastating critique of not just the previous Government's record on housing but also of those which preceded it - was absent from the Minister's and the Minister of State's comments. Let us remind ourselves of what it said. It spoke about systemic failures and "ineffective decision making" in housing policy. It said that policymaking was reactive and that "risk aversion dominates". They are its words, and not mine. It said that all of this is "undermining affordability". One of the most damning criticisms was that there was a "failure to successfully treat housing as a critical social and economic priority" and that the outgoing Government and those which preceded it had "one of the highest levels of public expenditure for housing, yet one of the poorest outcomes". These are damning criticisms. I genuinely hope that the Minister will absorb those criticisms because the commission did not make them lightly.

The good news is that the commission went on to say in the opening section of the report that there are clear solutions if there is a commitment to address the issues. It used the phrase, which the Minister will hear from other members of the Opposition today, that, "Only a radical strategic reset of housing policy will work." That means not more of the same, and not tinkering round the edges, but something fundamentally different. That involves tackling the housing deficit, which I will come back to in a moment. It will require, as it said, emergency action. It will also require, crucially, the increasing of social and affordable homes to 20% of housing stock, something that has so far been absent from any Government commentary. What does all this mean?

First, according to the commission, it means we need an output of an average of 60,000 new homes per year every year for the next five years. Not only do we need that output, but it needs to be front loaded. The commission recommends hitting 60,000 units by 2027. That is an enormously challenging task and different to the Minister's proposals. The implication of its comments on social and affordable housing was that the delivery would need to be at least doubled to at least 20,000 units per year on average. None of that is in the programme for Government or the current draft of the NPF. Nor was it mentioned by either the Minister or the Minister of State.

It is important to remember that the commission produced not just one report, it produced two. There is no comment of course on the recommendations to hold a referendum to enshrine the right to housing in the Constitution. At least now we know the Government is not going to do it and the charade of the previous programme for Government is dispensed with. As the Minister stated, there are 11 sections and 83 recommendations. I will focus on some of the key ones in the time available.

In section 3, on meeting housing requirements, the issue of the deficit is absolutely crucial. It is wholly absent from the NPF review document. We had an exchange with the officials before the general election and they could not answer our questions on how they got their figures. What is important to understand about the deficit is that if you do not address it, it grows each year. The deficit they talked about was the mid-range of 235,000 units. If you do not adequately increase overall output to meet that year on year, it grows. In fact, when a number of high-profile members of the commission read the programme for Government, they commented publicly that the Government was not addressing the deficit and that it was therefore going to grow. The Government should please listen to them and what they are saying and revise its NPF targets upwards. Likewise, they said policy needs to be based on assessment of actual housing needs. The idea that you would wait until 2027 to do a review of those already inadequate targets in the NPF review document makes no sense. It should be done annually. It should be fully independent of Government. It should utilise the best expertise in the country and be published for us all to respond to. I look forward to the debate on the national planning framework review, but if the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, does not get those numbers right then he will be failing from the beginning. I again urge him to engage with the experts on this matter, so we do not end up having a row about the underlying numbers.

With respect to section 4 and delivering supply, the housing delivery oversight executive is one of the most important ideas in the commission's report. It is one of their emergency actions. Of course, as the Minister knows it was rejected by his predecessor and is not in the programme for Government. It is interesting that the way in which he describes this, both in his interview at the weekend and today, is a bit different. I am not yet clear as to whether he is fully embracing the idea of an independent body of people who know how to deliver housing in the public and private sector and other agencies. If he does that and it is fully independent of the Departments that often act as a constraint on delivery, it could be interesting. However, we obviously need to see the detail of what will be involved. There are interesting propositions about establishing high yielding housing delivery zones and enhancing the powers of our local authorities, which is something the outgoing Government was doing the opposite of. The land price register is one of the few elements of the commission's recommendations that is in the programme for Government. I would again like to know the detail of what the Minister is proposing and when, but that is something on which he could have the support of this side of the House. There is then a cluster of recommendations on infrastructure, land and finance, all of which are key to increasing and accelerating both public and private sector supply.

I turn to the issue of finance, because if I hear another Government Minister telling us that the public sector cannot do it all I really am going to pull my hair out because nobody on this side of the House has ever said that. That Department of Finance report the Minister referred to talked about an annual requirement of €20 billion. They are saying €18 billion of that needs to come from the private sector, which means only €2 billion of State investment being used for housing delivery despite the fact that the State's capital commitment is between €4 billion and €5 billion. Of course, the reality is that the State has to do more. We need an annual capital investment by the State on social and affordable housing in the region of €8 billion, but far more of that needs to go into direct capital investment and not acquisition through turnkey, Part V and others. On the private side the issue is not whether we need more private sector capital or not. It is about what kind of capital to deliver what kinds of homes and in what manner. I will come to the detail of that later.

The next two sections of the report relate to cost, quality and capacity. Again, these are hugely important in terms of the standardisation of our standards, condition surveys and surveys of existing stock, particularly public housing stock, and building workforce capacity. I welcome that the request has gone in for planners to be put on the critical skills list, but how long will it take? That is something that should be happening as a matter of urgency. I know Deputy Cummins agrees with me on that but let us get it across the line as quickly as we can. Much of these sections of the Housing Commission’s report we agree with, and they are contained in some detail in our own alternative housing plan.

With respect to the private rental sector, I think this is one of the weakest sections of the commission's report. There was clearly a deep division as referenced in the footnotes. While I think there was an attempt by the commission to reach consensus, as a consequence of that it is quite an ambiguous section. I think we can all agree there are some good suggestions. The reference rent depends on the detail of reference to what, and how it operates. However, we are still of the view that we need to see a temporary ban on rent increases. We need to link rent reviews to an index made up of issues including wage inflation and there needs to be the use of reference rents for new rents and properties coming into the market. We have proposals in respect to that.

The Minister indicated that it is possible to protect renters and attract institutional investment. What is not possible is to allow rents continue to increase in order to attract that investment. There are better ways to attract the capital required for private home building than allowing landlords to either increase rents in existing tenancies or to increase rents between tenancies. I warn the Minister against any such proposition because I believe it would be counterproductive and result in little extra supply. What it will do is punish already hard-pressed renters who are paying rents that have never been higher.

Section 7 relates to affordability.

In some respects, this was one of the less satisfying aspects of the report because the focus needs to be on how to bring the all-in cost of development down to achieve greater affordability. It is interesting to note that the commission recommends phasing out the help-to-buy scheme, something the Government is not willing to do, and wants it to be replaced by an equity scheme. The problem is that this does not address the issue of the inflationary impact of such measures or bring costs down. Our alternative housing plan sets out in great detail better ways to derisk the private residential development sector by removing barriers and reducing costs to allow far more good quality homes to be built. It details a range of measures including HBFI, HISCo, planning, master planning, a targeted development levy and water connection waiver for SME builder-developers who are building homes for people to buy or for self-builders.

The section on social housing is one of the strongest. It has the largest number of recommendations, 16 in total, with many of these in alignment with our own party policies. Not only does the section require a dramatic increase in overall output but, exactly as the Minister has said, it also requires a really radical structural reform of how we finance, deliver and maintain our social housing stock. Again, if I am to take the Minister at his word and if he is interested in those proposals, there are areas where we could work together. Crucially, if it is his proposition, as per the programme for Government, to deliver an average of 12,000 new social homes a year, that will not cut it. It is nowhere near what the Housing Commission has said is required. It is also crucial that we get the Department of Finance, the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform and the officials at the Department of Housing out of the micromanagement of project delivery. They must trust, empower, fund and staff our local authorities and approved housing bodies to work with building contractors to build the homes that people need. With respect to cost rental, if the Minister does not understand by now that cost rental is in a deep crisis and that the increasing unaffordability of those units is going to be his main challenge alongside delivery, he needs to think again.

Sections 9 to 11, inclusive, are really important. Section 9 relates to on rural housing. Of course, until the Government publishes the rural planning guidelines, we will be no further on. There is also a need to provide supports for people to build sustainable homes in rural communities. Section 10 deals with inclusion and section 11 relates to environmental sustainability. Again, these contain many good suggestions. The Oireachtas housing committee has done work on some of these areas before and we would like to continue to work with the Department and the Ministers in the future.

In the final few seconds I have, I will say that it has not been possible to do justice to this report in the 15 minutes I was allocated. The Oireachtas committee needs to be allowed to do more. I urge the Government to let us do that. Unless it listens to what the commission is saying about targets, the delivery of social and affordable housing and structural reform of the system and unless it introduces the radical reset of policy that is required, it will be more of the same and more tinkering around the edges and the Minister will not achieve the things he says he wants to achieve. If that is the case, we will hold him to account. If, however, he wants to implement the radical reforms of this report and other recommendations from those of us in opposition, we will work with him.

I wish both Ministers well in their new roles. However, I must say that this Government has yet to show the political will needed to resolve the housing crisis. This has been made more apparent in recent weeks as the Government's pre-election confidence in reaching its housing targets was revealed to be utter fantasy. I hope the Government takes note of the Housing Commission's report because something needs to change radically. I also hope the Government will, as Deputy Ó Broin said, give the Oireachtas committee the opportunity to debate the report, to challenge the Government on it and to make sure it is implemented.

The housing crisis impacts upon virtually every community in the constituency of Cavan-Monaghan. People cannot find accommodation in the communities in which they wish to live and work. Students struggle to find accommodation while they are away for college. Disproportionate and unsustainable levels of people's wages are spent on the extortionate rents they are paying to vulture funds. The Government sees vulture funds that are uninterested in seeing the housing crisis as a potential excuse to further impoverish renters. It is truly a case of the treatment being worse than the cure.

An entire generation has been locked out of home ownership. I would like to speak of the missed targets for the delivery of affordable homes in Cavan and Monaghan but so lacking is the ambition of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that they did not even bother to set a target for either county. They tell us that the need is not great enough. The Government is so lacking in political will to deliver affordable homes in Cavan and Monaghan that it does not even put up a facade of trying.

Communities across Ireland are crying out for teachers, healthcare workers and many other vital workers. Many Irish people in Australia, Canada and beyond, the new diaspora of the Government's creation, would be willing to fill these roles if only they had a home to come home to. The Government's failures betray what must be either a lack of interest or an inability to foster an environment that would allow them to return home.

The Housing Commission report eviscerated successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Governments' response to the housing crisis. It described Government housing policy as the result of ineffective decision-making and criticised the lack of consistency in housing policy. Its identification of the need for 60,000 houses a year is in stark contrast to the Government's own targets. It is double what it delivered last year and majorly in excess of what it will deliver this year. It means that the Government is worsening the housing deficit every year.

What is the Government's plan? The Housing Commission has demanded a radical reset. For the people of Cavan and Monaghan, a radical start would be for the Government to finally do what is needed and to take an interest in the people of Ireland and their need for housing.