Today marks another dark day for the Government's housing record. The original target for 2025 of 41,000 new builds has been binned. The Minister, Deputy Browne, has cut the official target by 20%, stating that possibly only 34,000 homes will be built this year. Last year, only 30,000 homes were built, again far short of the Government's target of 40,000. This Government is in reverse in terms of the biggest crisis happening in this country. The promise in the programme for Government is that 300,000 homes would be built. Right now, the Government is going to meet half of that figure, based on the number of houses currently being built.

I have submitted freedom of information, FOI, requests to every single local authority in the country, in order to understand the scale of the crisis. The data I have received through these FOI requests fully contradict the Government's information. We asked local authorities, first, the number of homeless people in the State. Their figure is that 16,472 people are currently homeless. When we asked the Government for the homeless figure, we were told there are 15,580 homeless people. The Government is currently understating the number of homeless people in the State by 892. The Government's ability to count the number of homeless people is out by nearly 1,000.

We also sent an FOI to every local authority in the country to find out how many people are on housing waiting lists. The councils told us that there are 75,000 people currently on housing waiting lists. The official Government figure is 58,824. Here again, the Government is undercounting and understating the number by 16,000. Its ability to count the number of people on housing waiting lists at the moment is out by the population of Tullamore. That is an incredible situation.

We also "FOI'd" local authorities on the number of local authority homes that are empty. In the jaws of the worst housing crisis in the history of the State, there are 3,779 council-owned homes empty. Having empty homes in the middle of a housing crisis is akin to exporting food in the middle of the Famine. It is wrong. The fact of the matter is that we are paying nearly €600 million to house people in RAS and HAP homes, while so many local authority homes are empty.

I mentioned the Government and competence previously in relation to this, but perhaps I am giving it too much credit. Is it the case that in the middle of a Government freefall in terms of housing, it is misleading the general public on the number of people who are on housing waiting lists and the number who are homeless? Can we trust a word out of the Government's mouth in terms of these figures?

I hate to burst the Deputy's gotcha moment but I suggest he might wish to interrogate his numbers. I am not sure whether we should do a show of hands, but I imagine there is not a Member of Dáil Éireann, other than himself perhaps, who is not aware of the fact that there can be duplications.

There can, of course, be people involved with more than one local authority. There can be people in my constituency who can live between Greystones, Bray and Dún Laoghaire and they might be in touch with the two local authorities there. Going further south, people could be between Wicklow and Wexford. If you go to the west, they could be between west Wicklow and Kildare. If the Deputy wants to hand me over all of that data and information, he can but this is what people do when they seek to be divisive. They try to dispute official figures. These figures are not figures calculated by the Government in a party political sense. These are figures calculated by the State in a robust, impartial manner. They often deliver very difficult news for Government from a political point of view. Could we at least have the decency to respect the impartiality and robustness of those who gather statistics in Ireland? If we start trying to erode belief in statistics, that is part of a bigger agenda.

The Government is committed to the delivery of more than 300,000 homes by the end of 2030 - that is clear in the programme for Government. That is what we need to get to and we are taking big and bold decisions in the here and now to deliver those results over the next number of years. That means delivering measures that, when looked at in isolation, can understandably be critiqued or questioned but when you look at them in the round, all of the measures we are taking are to try to get a bit of momentum back into private investment in our housing market to increase supply.

We saw during the lifetime of the last Government that the number of houses very significantly increased from approximately 20,000 a year to a bit more than 30,000 a year. If we are being honest, they then plateaued. They plateaued at a level that is too low. That is why we are now taking measures to try to increase supply. It is why we have taken the decision on planning permission extension and on making more developments exempt from planning, particularly in gardens, attics and the like. It is why we published, and got through this House, a new national planning framework to provide more zoned land. It is why we are establishing a housing activation office - to break down silos. It is why we will invest significantly more in Uisce Éireann in the weeks ahead for water and wastewater treatment plants as well. We have a lot more work to do.

On the number of social homes, yes, we have more work to do but something else is also true. The Deputy must get invited to the same events I get invited to in my constituency. We are seeing a very significant increase in the number of social homes coming onstream. Last year, roughly the largest number of social homes were allocated since the 1970s. There were never more social homes allocated in my lifetime than there were last year. We need to keep that momentum and seek to do more.

One point I agree with the Deputy on is that council owned homes can lie empty for far too long. I have had a lot of discussions with a lot of people who are saying, "Hang on, if only I could get into that house. I do not need the devil and all done, I just need it to be safe and warm." That is why the Government intends to issue a circular to all local authorities to make it clear that health and safety should be the only grounds for the delay of the giving out of a local authority home, not the bells and whistles they sometimes go on with.

When the Tánaiste talks about increases in the building of houses and increases in the building of social homes, he is talking about increases from a floor of the worst housing collapse in the history of the State. He is talking about a figure of literally zero in terms of those increases. On getting these figures wrong and duplications, you cannot be on two social housing waiting lists simultaneously. You cannot.

The Deputy said homeless.

Let us talk about the figure-----

He said homeless lists.

We will get to the homeless one. The Tánaiste is understating his figures. The official figures are understated by a population of 16,676. That is extraordinary. Either that is incompetence and an inability to count the number of people who are on waiting lists at the moment-----

Who is incompetent?

-----or it is an attempt to hide the fact.

Who is incompetent?

The reason I think the Tánaiste is misleading the people is that he has previous on this. Right up to the jaws of the last general election, the Government was determined to give the impression to the people of Ireland that 40,000 homes would be built that year. As soon as that election was finished, the information became very clear and that statement from the Government, a number of senior Ministers and the Taoiseach himself was wrong. It is important the Tánaiste comes clean with people on this. This housing crisis is far too serious for misinformation. People need to know what is happening in this country.

There was not as much pirouetting and spinning at my daughter's ballet recital compared to what I just saw there. The reality is this is far too serious to engage in conspiracy theories.

That is why everybody is laughing over there.

The Deputy suggested I went around counting people. The reality is we have robust, politically independent, impartial structures in our State-----

They are inaccurate. Here are the FOIs. I am giving them to the Tánaiste.

Sorry, no. The Deputy can wave his sheets of paper but I want to know who in the public service he is calling incompetent?

These are public servants.

It is our public service. It is ours, we live in a Republic. It is our public service and it does a bloody good job and I want to know-----

These are public servants.

Just wait a second now, Mr. Angry. Wait.

Well, now.

I want to know who in our public service or what agency Deputy Tóibín believes is wrong in relation to our housing figures. I made the point about duplication and how you can report homelessness in more than one area. That did not suit the Deputy so he switched his argument for the next stage. The Deputy is right. We are coming from a very low base after a very difficult, deep financial recession in this country. We are working on trying to make progress, day in, day out. We have new ideas and are taking big, bold decisions every day to reach the 300,000 homes. The Deputy is simply over there throwing brickbats and engaging in conspiracy theories. I wish him well.

The council FOIs are not conspiracy theories.