In the lead-up to the last general election, the Taoiseach cynically misled the public about how many homes would be delivered. This was a blatant attempt to give the impression he was turning the corner on housing delivery. In reality, he was driving it off a cliff. We were told 40,000 homes would be delivered in 2024; in fact, it was 30,300, nearly 25% short of the target. The Taoiseach and Government have been consistently moving the goalposts when it comes to housing targets. Now, in the most blatant move to avoid accountability yet, they have elected to take the goalposts off the pitch entirely because not only have they removed annual targets from their long-awaited, much-hyped housing plan but the overall target goes beyond the lifetime of the Government. I have to ask: is the Taoiseach actually serious?

It is clear to everyone paying attention that the housing Minister is bereft of new ideas, dusting off old policy measures that have demonstrably failed. The Government wanted to reduce apartment sizes to reduce costs, something that has been tried not once but twice: Deputy Alan Kelly did it first when he was housing Minister in 2015, followed by Eoghan Murphy in 2018. It did not work on either of those occasions. I know, the Taoiseach knows and we all know it will not work now. The Government had a chance to abandon those plans this week when it was forced to withdraw them at the High Court but we are told it is still determined to plough on.

Tens of thousands of people across this country were hoping against hope for a radical reset of housing policy. With this plan, they are left with their head in their hands. Under the Government's latest so-called affordable housing scheme, a minimum salary of €56,000 is required to buy a one-bed apartment. What is affordable about that? That is too expensive for teachers, retail workers, gardaí, nurses and the vast majority of workers on average incomes. The Taoiseach's old plans failed these people and let us face it: the new one will too.

The Government has no credibility on housing. Its record is one of continued failure and continued refusal to acknowledge it, no matter how bad things get but strip away all the spin and this is what the latest housing plan amounts to: a public declaration of failure. Instead of changing course, it is trying to avoid being held to account, removing targets so it is easier to disguise its failure. You could not make it up. How many homes will the Government deliver over its lifetime?

The Government has set a target of 300,000 houses over the lifetime of this plan.

No, that is until 2030.

I am sorry, the Deputy has had her say. I say this respectfully to the Deputy. She uses language about a "radical reset of housing policy". What in the name of God does it mean? The Deputy has never put any flesh on the bone of anything she has ever proposed. She is bereft of policy. What is the radical reset? Spell it out.

It is in the Housing Commission report.

All I ever get from Deputy Cairns's party is, "We're against this, we're against that, we're opposing that and we're doing that", for the past number of years.

I will send the Taoiseach a copy if he likes.

It does not have a radical policy. It is nice language. It appeals to those who, without question, are under pressure, but there is no substance or depth to it.

It means nothing.

Absolutely none. By the way, under Housing for All, we exceeded our targets - an inconvenient truth for the Opposition. The problem was people then said the targets were not high enough.

The Government missed its social housing targets.

The bottom line is the population is growing exponentially and has grown. The pressures are enormous. We need to build at scale and at pace. The housing plan has substance in it in terms of proposals to do that. We did not wait for it. We decided straight in to do, for example, the national planning framework to get more land zoned for housing. Deputy Cairns will have problems with that on the ground and no doubt her people will oppose it where there is extra zoning and so on.

In terms of apartments, we are not standing still and just looking at a problem. We come up with proposals and ideas but people from the Opposition will get into the courts and try to stem those. The apartment guidelines are one strand among a series of measures we are taking to get to the volume needed. We have moved. When the Government came in in 2020, only 20,000 houses were being built per year; now it is 30,000-odd but it needs to get to 50,000. That will need a combination of public investment at unprecedented levels, which is provided for in the national development plan and in our budget, and significant private sector finance. The only thing the Deputy has come up with is a savings and investment scheme. That is fine; in a couple of years' time that might be useful. It will not do anything now in terms of funding investment of houses.

The Government does not even have it in the plan.

It will not build a house this year, next year or the year after.

It would if the Government had started it.

That is about the only concrete thing I have seen coming from Deputy Cairns's party in respect of a proposal. We have provided huge amounts of State funding. We need more private sector funding, particularly in apartments in cities.

We have also decided as a Government to invest huge moneys in water services, the national grid, public transport and roads to enable the construction of houses in cities and towns across the country. The issue will be delivering that. That means a more agile and effective planning system, which we provided for in legislation that the Social Democrats opposed. That needs to happen.

The only thing more predictable than this Government's plans failing is the Taoiseach's weekly attempt to come in here and blame the Opposition, the planning system or the courts for a mess of the Government's own creation.

The fact is the Government is driving housing off a cliff and the best the housing Minister can do is to tell people to hang in there. Hang in there and do what exactly? Should they hang in there and pay rents of €2,000 or €3,000 per month indefinitely? Should they hang in there and pay €500,000 for what the Government calls a starter home? At what point will the Government admit its plan is not working and listen to some of the ideas coming from the Social Democrats? We have continually proposed policy measures that would make a huge difference. The Taoiseach mentioned the State savings scheme. That is not in the plan. We put forward suggestions like the State acquiring a modular homes factory, zoning land for affordable housing and introducing a vacancy tax with teeth.

We are zoning land.

The list goes on and on. The Government votes them down consistently. I will ask again. What are the Government's targets for the lifetime of this Government, not to 2030?

On the scale of Ireland's ambition and the targets we have set, if you compare our housing plan targets with the United Kingdom, Germany or the Netherlands, on a per capita basis, our targets are nearly double their targets in terms of what they propose. Ours are approximately 9.3 per 1,000. The United Kingdom's is 4.5, Germany's is 4.8 and the Netherlands is 5.5. No one matches the ambition of this country in terms of house construction and planning-----

Oh please.

The Taoiseach is delusional.

Deputies, please.

-----and when it comes to delivery, in 2024-----

It is not Sinn Féin's question.

We know where we stand.

In 2024, of 23 European countries, Ireland had the second highest housing supply per capita.

The Government failed.

Therefore, in terms of targets and delivery-----

The targets were down.

-----we are to the fore across the EU.

He sounds like Trump

However, we need to do it at pace and with higher numbers. We want to get to 50,000. Genuinely-----

Will the Taoiseach answer the question?

How many did the Government get last year?

I see nothing in the Social Democrats' presentation.

The Taoiseach did not read it.

The savings and investments thing would take years to realise funding-----

-----which is not the immediate issue, by the way.

Thank you, Taoiseach.

The funding is going in. If people could only allow housing in our country----

The Government is ignoring the ideas.

-----in terms of the planning process, objections, judicial reviews and the rest of it.

Thank you, Taoiseach. Your time is up.

I do not see judicial reviews as a badge of honour, as Deputy Bacik does. I see them as a problem.

I call Deputy Gogarty.

The Taoiseach has given up on its own plan already. Where are the targets?

I call Deputy Paul Gogarty. Thank you.