I notice the Tánaiste has been spending a bit of time in Dublin city over the past few weeks-----

Cannot mention that.

I have to ask: does he feel any shame for what Fine Gael’s time in government has done to our capital city? I know that is a difficult charge but I want to illustrate the point so I will talk about just one street in central Dublin. That street is Gardiner Street. I am not sure if the Tánaiste is familiar with Gardiner Street but it is just one street over from the GPO where a mere 18 months ago, he stood and made a pre-election commitment to the people of Dublin. Does he remember that commitment? While launching the long-awaited report of the Dublin city centre task force, he said of our capital city:

It deserves a brighter future. It deserves dedicated resources, and it deserves a vision. We now have it.

That was the promise. One street over from where he made it Gardiner Street embodies the failure. One tenth of the homeless population of Ireland are being warehoused in emergency accommodation on Gardiner Street. The Dublin Regional Homeless Executive has contracted 20 properties on this one street, all but one of which are privately operated. That is 1,700 emergency accommodation beds on barely a half kilometre stretch of road. Yes, I also wince at the use of the word “warehoused” but I know personally the lived experiences of families trapped in this reality and to call it anything else would be an insult to their experience.

Eoin Murphy is the principal of Gardiner Street Primary School where 20% of the children are living in emergency homeless accommodation. He recently told RTÉ’s “Prime Time”:

Students’ basic needs aren't being met a lot of the time because they might be up late at night. They might not have good washing facilities or cooking facilities, nowhere to play or do their homework. If your basic needs aren't being met it's very hard to learn.

What is happening on Gardiner Street is a blight on this republic but there is another fact I want the Tánaiste to hold in his head if he visits central Dublin over the next few weeks. Using all available data sources, a north city centre residents alliance has concluded there are 7,000 people living in homeless accommodation in the north inner city. I do not have time to talk about the level of complex needs that are being unmet in this cohort but it is devastating to the lives of those trapped in the broken system and to the communities trying to pick up the pieces of Government failure. But there is an even crueller juxtaposition operating in tandem. The average monthly rent in Dublin city is €2,700 a month. Rents are 80% higher than they were a decade ago? How many affordable purchase homes were delivered across the entirety of Dublin City Council’s boundaries last year? Zero. There was not a single one.

Eighteen months ago, the Tánaiste stood at the GPO and talked of a vision for Dublin city. It is hard not to see the culmination of that vision as a city that is too expensive for the vast majority of Dubliners to ever live in and the creation of a system of impoverishment that is inescapable for those caught in the failed policies of the Government. Therefore, I will ask again: is this the vision of Dublin city that the Tánaiste has in mind? What is the plan to remove us from this and improve the capital city for the people who live here and the people who are caught in the oppression created by failed Government policy?

I thank the Deputy. I remember very well standing at the GPO for what was a very important moment for Dublin with the launch of the Dublin city task force report. I say that because it was a report that had nothing to do with me. I decided that we should have a task force for Dublin but the report is the culmination of an incredible body of work done by many people, including many Members, many people across the political divide, all of the agencies, the city council and its excellent chief executive, Richard Shakespeare, and many other bodies, among them the HSE, An Garda Síochána and business groups, which fed into the vision. I know the Deputy knows that too but I wanted to say that. That was the outworking of that. Since then, we have seen real progress in the implementation of the report. I believe Dublin City Council is this week progressing the establishment of the special purpose vehicle, SPV. The Deputy will be aware of the appointment the Government has made of someone to head that up and drive that in the person of Robert Watt; that Dublin City Council has allocated staff with the technical skills to a programme management unit to drive delivery and it is now working on an integrated area strategy; the changes we made to the living city initiative to make sure more buildings in Dublin, including in his constituency, can qualify for reliefs to bring them back into use as homes, including above the shop, and removing any restriction in relation to that; and the very significant money we have provided through the various renewal funds around Parnell Square culture quarter, the fruit and vegetable market and the plans in relation to the GPO as well. Now we have that SPV to drive delivery too. I am proud, quite frankly, of the vision of the Dublin city centre task force. I think people far away from Dublin can take an interest in this too because we all want to see a capital city that is vibrant and thriving but that does not take away from the point the Deputy made because that point is very valid. Homelessness in our country, but also in our capital city, is still far too high. In certain parts of our country, there is a particularly high number of people as well; I do not like to use the word “concentration”. We know while homelessness is a national problem, it is a problem that disproportionately impacts Dublin. That is why we are providing more funding for the Dublin homeless region and have provided funding of around €400 million in 2026; why we have provided local authorities with statutory discretion around HAP payments above the prescribed maximum rent limit; and why we recently met as a Government with Dublin City Council, its director of housing and its chief executive – that is myself, the Taoiseach, the Minister for housing and the Minister of State with responsibility for housing - to see what more can be done in relation to faster delivery of social housing. I accept it is an area in which we have a huge amount more work to do but both pieces of work are important. Driving implementation of the Dublin city centre task force is key while also, obviously, tackling the homeless emergency in the country.

The Tánaiste mentioned real progress has been made by the Dublin city task force. If I capture a bit of the timeline, I will show the fallacy of that statement. The Tánaiste first announced the establishment of the city centre task force in May 2023. That was commissioned later that year. Nothing happened in between the delivery of the report by David McRedmond which came 18 months ago. It sat on the Tánaiste’s desk for four months before that. In the 18 months sinc,e the Tánaiste has talked about an SPV that is undefined and unbudgeted and the announcement of a Civil Service representative. Dublin City Council has been asking for €114 million just so it can give body and finance to some of the initiatives the Tánaiste has talked about. For example, the last time I checked the living city initiative, there had been about 30 applications for it over many years and I would be surprised if it had reached 40 now. We need a vision for the city which, exactly as the Tánaiste said, is resourced and understands the oppression of the people who are being left behind in our city and understanding that people cannot afford to live in their city. We do not need more reports and years; we need action now.

It was May 2024. I became Taoiseach in April 2024 so it was May 2024 that we announced the plan to put this in place. Now, in 2026, we are already seeing delivery on that. The Deputy is actually right about the living city initiative. There was a rigidity around the living city initiative that, quite frankly, was making it too hard for people to benefit from. That is why we made a number of changes to it. I genuinely hope we see the benefits of that, most particularly to the changes relating to above-the-shop development. There has been some funding, though, through the urban regeneration fund already. I welcome the support of the Deputy’s party, I think, and most parties in this House in terms of other ways we can look at Dublin City Council having potentially ring-fenced funding whether that is a tourism levy or the likes - I am very eager to explore that – on the understanding that the funding goes directly into issues in Dublin city. We have seen other areas. The Minister for justice is present. We have seen a real focus on and progress in Garda numbers in the city and that has been widely acknowledged by people when I visit the Deputy’s constituency as well.

The Tánaiste promised 1,000.

A memo is due to go to the Government around the next two weeks specifically on the next steps for the GPO.