I was hoping the Government had learned its lesson when it was caught out deliberately misrepresenting last year's housing delivery numbers. I was wrong. When the figures for affordable housing were finally published last week, something was clearly off with them. Cooking the books was the only way the Minister could pretend the targets had been met. The target was 6,400 new-build affordable homes, but only 2,806 - less than half the target - were actually delivered. No amount of spin or attempts to inflate the figures can hide the Government's failure. Continually trying to mislead the public comes at a cost - your credibility. The reality is that nobody trusts this Government on housing. Nobody believes your plan is working. Even your own TDs are telling journalists your handling of housing is a disaster. At this point, any rational government would admit failure and concede what is needed, namely a new approach and a radical reset.

Instead, the Government's big idea is another gimmick, namely hiring a housing tsar. The head of the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, which oversaw the fire sale of thousands of homes and billions of euro of development land, is being headhunted for this position.

While the Government focuses on spinning its dismal performance, journalist Barry White described what it is like trying to buy a home. A two-bedroom house in Crumlin with an asking price of €375,000 was the subject of bids of €550,000 in a matter of days. These kinds of bidding wars are taking place across the country. This is the reality faced by thousands of people. Is it any wonder that an increasing number of people are giving up on the hope of ever owning their own home?

People who are struggling to buy homes, living in emergency accommodation or paying extortionate rents are tired of broken promises. What they want is a plan that will actually deliver affordable homes. They want something like the Social Democrats proposal produced by my colleague Deputy Rory Hearne to launch a homes for Ireland's savings account. This would leverage some of the €160 billion on deposit to fund the construction of affordable homes. We clearly need alternatives to investment funds if we are going to deliver housing that people can genuinely afford. There are solutions to this housing crisis.

Does the Taoiseach accept that the Government missed its affordable housing targets last year? Will he consider the Social Democrats homes for Ireland plan to fund affordable housing?

I appreciate the Deputy raising this issue again. Some 7,100 affordable housing solutions were delivered in 2024, exceeding the delivery target of 6,400. Since we came into office in 2020, nearly 13,000 affordable housing options have been delivered by the various delivery partners. Help to buy has helped young people to afford to buy first time new-build houses. Bridge the gap has also helped first-time buyers in terms of affordability. Those are schemes the Deputy's party opposed, which raises the fundamental question of how it would have assisted people when it comes to affordability in the context of new homes.

The Government will always consider new proposals, but this is about supply. I read the article by Deputy Hearne in respect of the Social Democrats' version of a special savings incentive account, SSIA, scheme to create funding for affordable homes. That does not actually build homes. It can perhaps help to create funding, but it will not lead to homes being built in the short term. The Deputy said it is an alternative to investment funds. We do not have too many investment funds investing in housing in the Irish economy right now, and that is a problem.

We had an SSIA scheme in the past. It was roundly criticised at the time. We have moved into a new era. The Government is open to consideration of a range of issues. The more fundamental point is how we get 50,000 houses built. I have genuinely yet to see anything from the Opposition that answers that question. The Government has built in or around 30,000 units. There has been a step change in the past four years from where we were, but this has taken huge investment on the part of the Government. On its own, that will not suffice.

We accept the argument that additional funding is required. We need private sector funding. The Deputy seems to suggest that a savings and investment type scheme would be an alternative to investment funds. I argue that we need to attract investment into Ireland in order to get more private sector supply and add to the €6 billion plus the Government will put into housing this year. We have added €800 million already, so the figure for 2025 will be more than €7 billion in terms of Government funding for housing. We need alternative sources of funding to add to that.

If the Deputy wants to put forward a detailed proposal in that respect, we will gladly receive it. I read one article on the matter. It is not clear from said article as to how that would cause a significant ramping up of construction of housing. We are open to any proposals on that front that the Deputy's party may have. If the Social Democrats can give us a detailed blueprint of the proposed scheme, we will certainly assess it.

The Taoiseach knows well that increasing the funding sources for housing will increase the construction of housing. In fact, he has often said that the reason the Government relies on investment funds is because of a lack of alteratives.

The situation is that there are now 15,418 people living in emergency homeless accommodation. There are 4,675 children growing up without a home. Rents have never been higher, house prices have never been higher and homelessness is at record levels. This is causing incredible stress, hardship and anxiety for families across Ireland. The answer from the Government to this seems to be to inflate figures around affordable housing delivery and to cook the books. All of a sudden, it is counting vacancy grants as an equivalent of new build affordable homes, and this is fooling no one. I ask the Taoiseach again: will he admit that the Government missed its affordable housing targets last year?

The Deputy is very dismissive of the vacancy grants. They are a huge-----

They are not an affordable home.

They are a huge addition to making houses affordable for God's sake.

They are not a new build affordable home.

If the Deputy talks to anybody who avails of those grants, he will see they are incredibly substantial, and so are the grants for dereliction if a person buys a derelict house and refurbishes it.

The Government is painting them as a new build affordable home.

That makes it affordable. It made it possible, and it has been a success. I know the Social Democrats opposed it.

Somebody got a grant for €1.5 million home.

Some of them went out against that as well-----

How is that affordable?

-----because they went against the affordability legislation that passed through the House in the previous Dáil.

The homelessness issue is becoming much more complex in terms of the composition of those who are homeless now-----

Here we go.

-----and the additional pressures that have come on in terms of emergency housing accommodation. It is not similar to what homelessness was five or six years ago. That needs to be acknowledged and analysed as well. What Government is focusing on is exiting people from homelessness as quickly as possible and preventing people from becoming homeless in the first instance.

How is that going for you?

I thank the Taoiseach. We now move to Deputy Connolly.