Éireoidh teipeanna tithíochta an Rialtais níos measa mar níl sé in ann infreastruchtúr bunúsach a phleanáil agus a bhainistiú i gceart. Tá fadhbanna ann inár ngréasán uisce agus leictreachais ag cur moill ar na mílte tithe agus á gcur i mbaol.

For years we have listened to the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, say that housing is their number one priority yet every single day we get headlines about Government's failures and incompetence which is putting the delivery of thousands of homes at risk. Let us take this week alone. First, we had the Central Bank and the ESRI telling the Oireachtas housing committee that the Government will not meet its housing targets this year or next year and that without a major policy change, it will not meet its targets out to 2030. Roll on to Tuesday and on RTÉ's "Prime Time", the Irish Council for Social Housing and the State's largest approved housing body, AHB, Clúid, confirmed that thousands of much-needed social and affordable housing projects have been delayed because of Government red tape and bureaucracy. They say this means that 3,000 fewer social and affordable homes will be delivered. For months, the Minister, Deputy James Browne, denied that this was a problem but he has now been found out. If all that was not enough, we come to today and two senior civil servants have sounded the alarm over serious infrastructure deficits impacting disastrously on housing delivery. First, the chief executive of Uisce Éireann has told the housing Minister that all households in Dublin face water shortages in the next five years. This is due to significant delays in delivering major water supply projects in the capital and the Government's failure to invest properly in our creaking water network. The inability to guarantee a water connection is jeopardising the delivery of thousands of new homes. Then we had the Secretary General of the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications issuing another stark warning that housing delivery is at risk because of electricity supply shortages. Data centres are soaking up electricity put in place for future housing and this problem goes right back to the failure of the Government to build capacity in the grid and to modernise the network to meet the challenges of today.

What we are talking about here, in simple terms, is the inability of the Government to ensure the very basics - water and electricity connections for houses. These are some of the most basic needs in any society and people are scratching their heads because this State has record surpluses. Money is not the problem so the problem must be the incompetence and bad decisions made over and over again by the Government. This is a Government that cannot plan or get the job done when it comes to critical infrastructure and this is strangling housing delivery.

For the life of me I cannot fathom how the Government can say - and I am sure the Tánaiste will say it again with a straight face - that it has turned a corner on housing. The truth is that it is going around in circles. All Government members are going around in circles on this issue. Their failure to get the basic rights, to future proof infrastructure development is coming home to roost and it is impacting hardest on housing delivery.

A few weeks ago the Tánaiste made a TikTok video. In it he said that we have a housing emergency and that he wanted the Government to start acting like it. That raised some eyebrows. He has been a Minister for 11 years and his party has been in government for 14 years and yet he is doing TikTok videos saying that the Government should act like there is a housing emergency. It has been put on the record over and over again. Uisce Éireann, the Secretary General of the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications, and the largest AHB are all telling us of the Government's failure to plan and the fact that the Department of housing is stalling and has now put at risk thousands of social and affordable houses.

Does the Tánaiste accept what the Central Bank and ESRI have said, that the Government is going to miss its targets for housing this year? If so, what is the Government really going to deliver this year? Does the Tánaiste accept that 3,000 fewer social and affordable homes will be delivered because of delays in the Department of housing? What is the Government going to do about the water and electricity supply that is so vitally needed?

I thank Deputy Doherty. Housing is the biggest domestic challenge that this country faces and the people in this country face. It is the biggest societal challenge on a domestic level and it is now a real economic challenge as well.

We have to do more when it comes to housing. We, the parties that formed the Government and the Independents who support it, were very clear that if returned to office, we would work to increase the scale of housing delivery. The Deputy's party put forward its plans as well, which I do not think convinced many.

Deputy Doherty talks about record surpluses, and I am glad he does, but he just kind of brushes over them as though they happened by accident. The reason we are in a position that we have record surpluses, the reason we are going to be able to spend a hell of a lot more money on water, energy, housing and putting in place the services people need, is because of the way we have managed the economy of this country, working with the Irish people, over the past number of years. These things do not happen by accident.

There has been, objectively and factually, a significant increase in the progress of the delivery of housing in recent years. We have seen more than 133,000 new-build homes delivered between 2020 and 2024. A total of 92,500 of those homes were delivered just between 2022 and 2024, which is up nearly 50% on the previous three years. It is objectively true that we saw a significant uplift in housing. It is also true that it is not enough, and it is also true that it has somewhat stalled or reached a plateau. Therefore, we now have to look at what we can do to take it to the next level and be able to achieve the ambition we have of 300,000 more homes being delivered in this country by 2030.

We are very clear in regard to what we need to do, and many of the issues the Deputy highlighted are key parts of that jigsaw. We need planning reform, making sure, and we would appreciate the Deputy's party's assistance on this, that people do not keep objecting to the delivery of housing in their communities, saying they are in favour of houses here but against them in their own communities. We need to resource An Bord Pleanála-----

Talk to your colleagues before talking about objections. Talk to the Minister of State sitting beside you.

We can come back to that in a moment. Other actions needed include: resourcing An Bord Pleanála properly; enacting and commencing the various provisions of the Planning and Development Acts in order that we can speed up the delivery of planning, because planning decisions are holding back the delivery of homes and infrastructure; increasing the zoned land for housing, and that is what the national planning framework the Minister for housing brought before this House was all about - making sure we have enough zoned lands to deliver the homes we need in each of our communities; and providing more funding and a better way of delivering key infrastructure like water and energy.

It is hard to take a lecture from Deputy Doherty in relation to water after his party politicised the issue of water so much to try to stymie progress in recent years. His party continues to mislead people about the Government's intentions in respect of Irish Water.

It is always somebody else's fault.

No, just yours. The misleading of people in relation to Irish Water is your fault. We have been very clear that we are going to have to spend an awful lot more on Uisce Éireann. I met with the chief executive of Uisce Éireann for a number of hours last Friday. Uisce Éireann has presented to the Government real plans that if we can provide it with significant additional capital funding over the summer period in the context of the review of the national development plan, it will be able to, I am sure the Deputies opposite will be delighted to know, provide enough water infrastructure to enable to delivery of the homes we need.

It looked for funding a year and a half ago. It is still waiting.

I am not sure who is playing leader of Sinn Féin today, whether it is you or Pearse. I am not sure whether this is the audition for the next leader of Sinn Féin but I would like to speak, if that is okay.

This is no joking matter.

Allow the Tánaiste to reply, please.

We will publish a new housing plan-----

Do Deputies opposite want an answer?

They do not want an answer because they are not about the answer.

Uisce Éireann wants the answer to the funding request it made a year and a half ago.

May I speak? I am sure Pearse does not need your help.

Deputy Ó Broin, please allow the Tánaiste to answer.

We are going to produce a new housing plan in July. Deputy Doherty can be quite assured that part of that new housing plan will be significant additional funding and enabling provisions for Irish Water and, indeed, for energy. We have been clear, and we were very clear in the election, about what we would do with the proceeds from the Apple account in terms of how that money would be deployed.

I agree on this point: water infrastructure and energy infrastructure are key enablers if we are serious about reaching the 300,000 homes that need to be delivered in this country between now and 2030. The Deputies will see, week in and week out, actions from the Government to get to that point. They saw just the first in a range of announcements they can expect with the memo we had this week in relation to the extension of planning permissions that were due to expire.

It is time to get real. The ESRI, the Central Bank, the Secretary General of the Department of the environment, Uisce Éireann and the approved housing bodies - the list goes on and on - all say the Government is failing on the basic issues. As Deputy Ó Broin has rightly pointed out, Uisce Éireann has been looking for money for a year and a half. Across all of our constituencies, projects cannot go ahead because of lack of investment. It is happening in Gweedore and it is happening in Dublin city centre. That is the reality.

After more than a decade of the Tánaiste being a Minister and of Fine Gael being in government for nearly a decade and a half, we have serious issues with water and electricity that are putting the most basic right, namely to a roof over one's head, in jeopardy. To add insult to injury, we have people who want to build homes.

If they were not objected to.

The woman sitting beside you objected to 8,000 homes. Maybe have a word with her.

There have been 2,840 objections.

I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Healy-Rae, to show an example.

I have never objected to houses, but the Minister of State beside you objected to 8,000 homes.

There were 2,840 objections. The truth hurts.

To add insult to injury, we have a person from an approved housing body, the largest in the State, taking to the national airwaves saying that 3,000 social and affordable houses will not be delivered as a result of red tape, bureaucracy and delays by the Minister and his Department.

I ask Deputy Doherty to conclude. The Tánaiste to respond.

I put it to the Tánaiste that the Government is going to miss its targets again. Does he accept that?

Resume your seat, Deputy Doherty.

What does he say about the fact 3,000 social and affordable homes will not be delivered, as they should be delivered and as people want to deliver them, because of the delays and red tape in the Department?

Hear, hear.

Over the past number of years I have been in government, we have seen a very significant increase in the number of homes delivered in this country. We saw 133,000 new homes delivered between 2020 and 2024, with 92,500 of them delivered between 2022 and 2024. Deputy Doherty never acknowledges that bit. He never acknowledges that we have rebuilt a construction sector and rebuilt an economy, that we now have a national planning framework, the biggest overhaul of planning legislation in a generation, if not ever, and a real opportunity now-----

We have higher rents and higher homelessness.

-----if Deputies want to work constructively and not politicise the issue of housing, to actually make real progress in the time ahead. We now have the legislative background-----

There are 4,000 children homeless. That is political and it is happening on your watch.

I am not going to be shouted down by the Deputy. I am going to speak, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

Deputy Ó Broin, would you mind listening to the Tánaiste's reply, please?

If he answered the questions, I would.

No, have some manners.

Between now and the month of July, we are going to work on a housing plan; not a glossy document but a targeted list of actions we can take in relation to water, energy and planning that will get us to 300,000 homes. I assure Deputies we have the money and capital to make this happen. What we now need is political support across this House and in communities to drive on delivery.

I asked you twice whether you met the targets.

I hope the Deputy will support the establishment of a housing activation office that will do exactly what he said, which is bring in people from Irish Water and the local authorities and put them in an office working together to break down those silos so we can deliver the homes for our people.

You do not have the political will to do it. That is the problem.

I call Deputy Cian O'Callaghan.

It has been 14 years and you have nothing to show for it.

It is pointless me having to try to shout down Deputies on the Government side, then shout down the Opposition and try to get the business done. If Deputies respect each other and the time they have, we will get on just fine and everyone will be able to make their points adequately.