This Government is clearly in panic mode. Its new housing plan was supposed to be published in July and there is still no sign of it. Instead, what we have seen is a succession of measures that all have one common feature: throwing more public money at developers in the desperate hope that the market will deliver.

We have been here before and we know how it ends - soaring house prices and rents and a broken housing system.

I am sure the Taoiseach does not need me to tell him that there is more disastrous news in housing today. Construction activity is down again, for the fifth time in a row. Just to be clear, the Government's target for 2025 is 41,000 homes. We are now halfway through October, so we have a pretty good idea of where it is going to go. According to the Central Bank, the Government is going to miss its housing targets again - this time by 8,500 homes.

People are sick of hearing the Taoiseach say that the Government's approach to housing is working despite every metric proving otherwise. At some point, this Government is going to have to face reality. Its housing policies have failed.

We need new thinking. The State needs to step up and deliver affordable homes. The State needs to radically change course, as its own Housing Commission recommended, because the fact of the matter is the Government's approach has not worked, it is not working now and it is not going to work.

Budget after budget, people in their twenties, thirties and forties are looking on, still in their childhood bedrooms, missing out on milestones, relationships, career opportunities, having a family, unable to plan their future or put down roots in a community - all while they look at headlines about record budget surpluses. The disconnect is just staggering.

People have been listening to Governments promising to address the housing disaster for more than a decade now, so I understand that many people out there just feel despair and hopelessness, but there are solutions. The Social Democrats have a huge range of policy proposals that could make a real difference, such as the homes for Ireland saving plan to use some of the €160 billion just sitting in deposit accounts earning no interest and our plan to build a modular homes factory to turbo charge the delivery of affordable homes, but instead of adopting them or even examining them, the Government will just plough on with the same old failed approach.

My question is: when is the Government going to publish its housing plan and is it planning to do anything different?

First of all, I would reject completely the analysis of the Deputy. We have been listening to a lot of empty rhetoric on the side of the Opposition in respect of housing. As I said earlier, housing supply is not where we want it to be but it is significantly way up on where it was five years ago on an annual basis. In the second quarter of this year, there were very high figures - the highest since 2008. Now they need to be, and we need to get to 50,000 houses. The Deputy's savings plan is not going to do that this year, next year or the year after. Let us not pretend it would. There are factories out there in terms of modern methods of construction. I have visited them. Saying they would create a new factory for modular is not going to change the dial. They are out there. Modern methods of construction is now fully integrated into our house-building operations and we are continuing to work on that because it is an important dimension to housing.

The housing action plan will be published, certainly within the next five to six weeks.

In the lifetime of the Government.

Of course we did not wait for the housing action plan. We have brought in a range of measures since the beginning of the year, most of which the Deputy has opposed, as she opposed most measures in respect of housing from the planning Act right through.

This budget allocates significantly more resources again on very substantial State investment in housing - a 20% increase in overall funding to housing. I heard Deputy Bacik talk about it having been "commodified and marketised". In the name of God, it is the State that is investing overwhelming in housing today.

It is the developers. You just give it to the developers.

It is the State investing across a broad sweep of housing policies. What has to happen is that the State funding has to be balanced by private sector finance. I know the Deputy hates that. The Deputy has an instinctive ideological opposition to that, which I disagree with. Until we get a significant financial investment from the private sector in housing, we are not going to get to 50,000.

It is to rent shoeboxes.

The State cannot sustainably finance on its own the building of 50,000 to 60,000 houses for the next decade, so strategy and policy must reflect the continuance of unprecedented Government investment but complemented and supplemented by private sector investment.

That is the clear strategic approach of Government. It is not panic mode or anything of the sort but it is relentless and it is focused. We are not going to be sidetracked by populist short-term declarations, announcements or soundbites that look good. Soundbites do not build houses. I am absolutely committed, along with the Minister and the entire Government, to dealing with the housing issue as a constant priority and that is reflected in the budget. Yes, we did not go down the income tax route or other routes. Why not? It is because we wanted a 20% increase in housing. We wanted a €50 capitation grant for primary schools, which makes a huge difference.

Answer the question, Taoiseach.

Thank you, Taoiseach. I call Deputy Cairns.

We want to build infrastructure, water and grid, which are central to housing. That is what enables us to build more houses.

Thank you, Taoiseach. The time is up.

Water, grid and public transport are the fundamental pieces of infrastructure that make house building possible.

Taoiseach, your time is up, thank you.

The Taoiseach says he is not in panic mode but it does sound like he is panicking-----

Hear, hear.

-----and he is yet to answer my question on when the Government will produce its housing plan. It is still delayed.

There is acknowledging the role of the private sector, which we do, and then there is completely and utterly relying on it, which is what the Government does. The Government goes far beyond acknowledging the role of the private sector and goes to the extent of paying private developers to build luxury apartments it has already built. It is quite simply unbelievable. The dominance of private developers in the housing sector keeps housing prices high because, of course, they demand large profits. That is the nature of the private sector. To build affordable housing in Ireland we need to invest in State construction of housing. We need to build up the not-for-profit sector and we need to produce modular homes at scale. Without taking these steps, and acknowledging the Government's approach is not working, nothing will change. I acknowledge that soundbites do not build houses but the Taoiseach needs to acknowledge that the Government is not building enough houses.

Thank you, Deputy. The Taoiseach to respond.

I will ask my question again: is the Government going to do anything different in this plan, and when will it produce it?

A total of €4 billion alone in current expenditure is being provided for housing for 2026. This is an increase of €600 million. Key elements of this will go to homeless services-----

More emergency accommodation.

-----to ensure that local authorities can provide emergency accommodation. Well, it has to be done. For God's sake, we have to provide it.

Because the Government is causing-----

Allow the answer. One voice please.

The Deputy would be the very first guy condemning us if we did not.

The Government took away the eviction ban.

There are homeless prevention measures, tenancy sustainment measures and so on, and enabling people to exit emergency accommodation as quickly as possible. We will fund over 5,000 new homes under the social housing current expenditure programme. We continue to support over 40,000 existing homes under the scheme. There is €470 million to support an additional 7,000 new tenancies. At present there are 50,000 tenants. There are significant numbers moving to more permanent social housing. Over 28,000 transfers to other forms of social housing have taken place. Then we have the rental accommodation scheme. In terms of capital, under the NDP well over €7 billion is allocated capital to housing.

Thank you, Taoiseach.

That is not a soundbite or rhetoric. That is unprecedented investment in housing and that is reflected this year as well.

We now move to Deputy Paul Murphy.