Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-29
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Cian O'Callaghan (SD), Dublin Bay North

The housing completion figures announced earlier show that we are thousands of homes short of the target the Tánaiste set. The number of homes is almost 5,000 short of the 41,000 that he promised to deliver. Of course, the Government is trying to run away from that target now. The housing Minister has decided that annual targets are a distraction. A distraction from what? This is the number of new homes that the Tánaiste said are needed and that he promised to deliver. The 41,000 target is there, in black and white, published by the Government just weeks before the election. If the Tánaiste needs to jog his memory in this regard, he can consult the Fine Gael election manifesto because the 41,000 target was printed in black and white in that as well.
We all know that this is not the only housing target the Government has missed by a country mile. In the run-up to the election, the Tánaiste was categoric that 40,000 new homes would be delivered by the end of 2024. That was another bogus figure, trotted out despite mountains of evidence that it was pie in the sky.
Out of ideas and with their housing plan in tatters, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have now reverted to type. They are offering tax breaks for developers and sweetheart deals for investment funds, along with new legislation with the sole purpose of letting already record rents rips. Instead of providing affordable homes for people to buy, the Government is, in the words of the Taoiseach, pivoting "more strongly to" the private sector. This means turning hard-pressed renters into cash cows for investment funds and bleeding them dry to feed the vultures.
This is not an academic debate about numbers. It is about people in their 20s, 30s and 40s who are still living in their childhood bedrooms and feeling hopeless and helpless because their lives are passing them by. They are missing out on milestones, relationships, career opportunities and even starting families. It is about the growing number of elderly renters who are at risk of homelessness. It is about the 5,321 children who are growing up without homes, all because successive Governments have doubled down on failure. What is happening is not an accident; it is a choice. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have led us here. Today's housing numbers are yet another monument to their failure.
Under the Tánaiste's watch, a housing crisis has morphed into a housing disaster and from a housing disaster into a social catastrophe. Despite this, the Tánaiste is going to stand up in a minute and tell us about what a great job he is doing. The gall is incredible. Will the Tánaiste admit that he has broken yet another election promise. Why did the Government publish annual housing targets just before the election and then tear them up straight afterwards?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-29