I congratulate our new Social Democrats TD, Daniel Ennis, and Fine Gael’s new Deputy, Seán Kyne. I warmly welcome them to this Chamber. Dan is going to be a fantastic addition to our parliamentary party team. We are all so excited to work with him. This is a huge day for Dan, Seán and their families. I welcome their families and supporters to the Gallery. I especially welcome Dan’s mother, Jacqueline, his brother Geoff and his fiancé, Chloe. None of us would be in this Chamber today if we did not have the support of family, friends and party members. These are the people who knock on doors for us and keep us going through the hard times and families who are willing to make enormous sacrifices in order that we can be here. This essential support does not get enough recognition, so I wish to acknowledge it today. I thank our excellent candidate in Galway West, Míde Nic Fhionnlaoich, and everyone who voted for the Social Democrats on Friday.

The front page of the Irish Daily Mail today reveals a shocking figure. The cost of emergency homeless accommodation reached nearly €500 million last year. That is a 570% increase in spending in just ten years. While we can measure the financial cost of soaring homelessness, we cannot measure the human cost. How many babies are struggling to learn to crawl right now because of a lack of space? How many toddlers are experiencing delayed speech development? How many children have become withdrawn or have fallen behind in school? How many of their parents have developed insomnia and depression? How many relationships have broken down because of the constant stress caused by their living conditions? The full extent of the trauma being created by homelessness is something we will never truly know, but we know the negative impact can be lifelong. It affects children’s development, education, mental and physical health, job prospects and relationships.

A stable, secure home is the foundation for a happy life. That basic building block is missing for 17,500 people. This is especially an issue in Dublin Central, where a disproportionate amount of emergency accommodation is located. One tenth of the homeless population of Ireland – 1,700 people – are living on just one street, namely Gardiner Street. Across the constituency, it has been estimated that there are 7,000 people living in homeless accommodation. Has any small area in the country ever had to cope with such a disproportionate level of trauma, unmet need and State failure?

These are people and an area that have been abandoned by successive Governments. They have been left to pick up the pieces of years of Government failure on housing. The response of this Government is not to help or reduce homelessness but to make the situation even worse and introduce new rent rules that have led to record rent increases. We need the Government to recognise that and change course, starting as a matter of urgency with a temporary ban on no-fault evictions and a ban on rent increases. Will the Taoiseach do that?

The population increase in the last ten years has been quite phenomenal as well and is having an impact on the housing situation. Migration - and I mean this in a general sense, not casting any aspersions - has had an impact on housing also. One only has to look at the figures now of the people who are non-European or non-Irish in emergency accommodation. It is well over 50%. That is where we are in the modern era. We have to deal with that. We have to help people who find themselves homeless. Of that there is no doubt, but we also need to understand what the drivers of homelessness have been in the past five to ten years.

Evictions.

Without question, when you analyse the figures and talk to people, population growth is a key area, but we also need to respond in terms of social housing, for example. We are building more houses in direct builds per annum now than since the foundation of the State. Last year, over 9,000 social houses alone were built. Ultimately, the provision of increased social housing is the best route to dealing with homelessness. No other way will sustainably deal with it.

In addition to that, we are building a lot of affordable homes and giving a lot of support to people in terms of starter homes. Across the board, in terms of housing assistant payment, HAP, and other things, we are giving assistance to people who need to access housing. Without question, the momentum is towards increased house provision. Some 36,000 homes were built last year. We hope to increase that figure for 2026 and probably will. What is interesting is that commencements are up by 176% this year, with about 11,000 commencement notices in the first four months. Real dwelling investment is up by 19% and construction employment is up by 33% since 2020, 10% year on year. That is because of the increased house building that is taking place. There has been a 55% year-on-year increase in terms of land for housing and deals to facilitate housing. The Home Building Finance Ireland, HBFI, loan book is up by 25%.

Whatever metric one is looking at, there are increases happening. The issue is the speed and how we can exit people from homelessness as quickly as possible, and from emergency accommodation in particular. If we do a temporary eviction ban, we will depress supply again. We have been through this. The Housing Commission said that the existing renting situation could not continue and that we had to create a more permanent framework for the rental market to give certainty to all concerned. What the Deputy suggested towards the end of her contribution would actually make the situation worse because supply would be depressed. We need more supply and we need it as quickly as possible. It is interesting that any form of supply we have proposed in the past three months has been opposed by the Social Democrats and by others in the Opposition.

The Taoiseach needs to stop and listen to himself when he comes into this Chamber week after week and tries to spin a positive message on housing when there are 17,000 people homeless, including more than 5,000 children. This is at a time when there are record budget surpluses. The only thing the Taoiseach has changed in his approach is to start blaming migrants for that failure.

Hear, hear.

It is shameful. The Taoiseach talks about every metric and fails to mention the most important metric, which is the increase, month on month, and the records being broken in the number of people becoming homeless. Instead of acknowledging that the approach has failed and changing it, the Government introduced legislation that we all knew would increase evictions and rents, which is exactly what happened. Will the Taoiseach at least acknowledge the staggering increase? The only success the Government has had in terms of homelessness is to normalise it. I do not have any faith in Fianna Fáil to address this crisis and I do not think any of the electorate in either constituency where there was recently a by-election do either.

Deputy Cairns's time is up. The Taoiseach will respond.

I do not have any faith in the Deputy’s capacity or her party’s capacity to deal with housing and homelessness-----

The electorate-----

Please.

-----based on what it has produced so far, in terms of the substance of what it has put forward. Soundbites will not build houses. It is good play but it will not build houses. I do not mind having an honest debate on housing but the Deputy consistently fails to acknowledge any progress at all in terms of the social housing issue, for example. There have been 58,000 social houses built in the last five years. That is dramatically better than anything built in the previous ten years, but the Deputy cannot acknowledge that. She cannot acknowledge anything at all. I acknowledge there is a homeless crisis out there. I have said from day one that housing is the number one crisis, but we are doing something about it with concrete policies.

The Government is making it worse.

I have genuinely seen nothing. All I see that the Social Democrats have produced is a savings and investment scheme.

Not true.

Allow the Taoiseach to continue.

That is all it has really come up with.

That is not going to not solve homelessness today, next year or the year after.

Ban evictions and-----

Deputy, please.

There is a lot of rhetoric but very little substance on the Deputies' side.

Where are the 40,000 homes the Government promised two years ago?