In this budget, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael once again showed that they put generation rent behind the developers and investor funds, which were completely prioritised. During the election campaign, they never said that their big idea was going to be a tax-cut giveaway of up to €500 million a year to wealthy developers and funds. Today, the Government's developer VAT cut has been torn apart by none other than its own Parliamentary Budget Office over a lack of evidence and the fact that developers that have already started building thousands of apartments will get this windfall. This is utterly damning. Billions of euro are going to be given to developers and investors for apartments that are already being built, with no affordability obligations. Billions are going to be given to build apartments that no one will be able to afford to buy or rent. It is clear that, when the lobbyists came in and said "Jump", the Government asked "How high?" because it is unwilling to take the radical action needed to address this housing crisis. Why will it not ban evictions to stop children being made homeless? Why will it not implement the radical action we suggested in our alternative budget? The reason is the Government has been captured by the lobbyists of the investor funds and developers and is unwilling to take that radical action, so it will leave 5,000 children homeless and give billions to developers and investment funds. The Government's members should be ashamed of themselves.

Deputy Hearne is captured by an ideology that believes private investment in the housing market is bad.

Who is? Is the Tánaiste saying I am?

Yes.

That is completely untrue.

What the Deputy said about me was completely untrue. It is not pleasant, is it?

No, it is not. It is a fact that the Government is giving billions to developers and investors.

We are taking every step we possibly can to endeavour to increase housing supply. There is a viability issue when it comes to apartment construction. Anything that can assist in the construction and sale of apartments is a good thing. Of course, this is only one of the many things we are doing to try to help.

Can the Tánaiste justify billions for apartments that are built?

I do not know why the Deputy keeps saying "billions" when the total cost of the measure is-----

It is half a billion.

You cannot just say a million here and a million there comes to a billion.

Half a billion is not billions.

In two years' time, it will be up to a billion.

Ah, stop.

Half a billion is not the same as a billion.

In four years' time, €2 billion will have been spent.

Please, Deputy Hearne.

The Deputy came in here and said that we were giving billions for completed apartments.

Yes, because the Government will be.

We are not. That is misinformation.

It is not.

The total package is millions. The proportion that will go to completed apartments is presumably a very small fraction of that.

That is not necessarily the case.

It is nowhere near billions. Accuracy matters when one is talking about taxpayers' money.

The Tánaiste still will not answer my question.