The Government cannot hide that it missed its targets.

Too little and too slow.

He is provoking us.

Homelessness has something to do with me.

Homelessness was created by this Government.

This Government is missing its targets.

I thank the Minister of State for his opening statement. I apologise for being late but I was with departmental officials going through the fine detail of the Planning and Development Bill. My head is still a little bit sore from the two hours and 45 minutes of that session. Normally at this time of the year I am standing over here railing against the Government for introducing very significant and consequential amendments to existing legislation that we do not have time to scrutinise. I am delighted not to be in t…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." As the Minister knows, this Christmas morning more than 4,000 children will wake up in emergency accommodation. They will not wake up in a home of their own but in a hub, hostel or bed and breakfast. Other children will wake up in the accommodation of family and friends. Astonishingly, some may even wake up rough sleeping. This is the single highest number of children in Government-funded emergency accommodation since any records began, not just the recent series r…

There will be more children in emergency accommodation at Christmas because of the Minister. That is on him. Shame on the Minister.

As the Minister of State knows, we have all been watching events unfold at the Peter McVerry Trust with a level of real seriousness for the many people who depend on that service and the service itself. I understand a significant amount of work has been going on in the background and an agreement was reached for a financial support package at Cabinet last week. Will the Minister of State make a statement on the matter?

I commend Mr. Francis Doherty, the chief executive at the time, who brought these matters to light at the Department, the DRHE and the appropriate regulators. Unfortunately, for reasons already in the public domain, he resigned a short time afterwards. I also acknowledge the significant role played by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive. I welcome the appointment of the former chief executive of South Dublin County Council, Daniel McLoughlin, who is providing management consultancy services, including the role of …

I welcome the additional information. Responsibility for all of these affairs rests with the Peter McVerry Trust, the failures of its board and its previous chief executive, Pat Doyle. We will deal with responsibility and accountability when the reports from the two regulators are published. There is also a wider policy context. For years, homeless services have been funded through a deficit funding model in which they are not provided with 100% funding for the services they provide. In fact, an issue at the heart …

As of quarter 2 this year only 123 affordable homes had been delivered through the Government's affordable housing fund, the cost rental equity loan and Project Tosaigh. The quarter 3 figures should have been published some time ago. I believe they are with the Department. Will the Minister of State tell us the quarter 3 figures for those three crucial schemes, which are the affordable housing fund for affordable purchase, the cost rental equity loan for cost rental through approved housing bodies and Project Tosai…

The Minister of State said in his response that more than 3,000 affordable homes have been delivered through four Government housing schemes. That is not true. If he reads the detail of the information on his own website, almost 2,000 of those homes are under the first home scheme - the controversial shared equity loan. However, there is a footnote in that report stating those 1,917 first home loans are approvals only, and not actual purchases. To say, for example, that they are all homes delivered is not true. You…

The idea that the very small number of affordable purchase and affordable cost-rental homes that have been delivered over three years is delivery at scale is laughable. The numbers speak for themselves. We had a discussion about this last night. It is very interesting that in his first response, the Minister of State talked about several thousand homes being delivered through the first home scheme. He now accepts that they have not been delivered and people are not living in those homes. They are simply loan approv…

What the Minister of State left out from that list of figures is the affordable home equity stake the State acquires, which has to be paid back. I am not disputing that the figures given are the prices at the point of purchase but anybody who purchases one of those homes also has to repay the shared equity portion at a future point. They can do that either with a lump sum or on transfer or sale, and there is no interest. It would be much more honest if the Minister of State set out the purchase price and the all-in…

After the budget each year, the Department produces an abridged Estimates Volume, which not only lists the headings for each of the functions of the Department but also the amounts allocated to each spending item. By the end of the year that document is revised into what is called a Revised Estimates Volume which has an updated figure. In previous years I have been given some of that documentation. I am asking the Government to publish the abridged Estimates Volume and the Revised Estimates Volume for last year in …

Clearly the Minister of State is very confused and does not understand what I am asking for. This is what I am asking for. Every single year since 2018 I have either written to the Secretary General of the Department or put in a parliamentary question requesting a breakdown not just of how much housing gets, heritage gets and local government gets, but every individual spending programme. Every year since 2018 I have been provided with that detailed breakdown. The Minister of State is absolutely correct in what he …

The Minister of State is completely missing the point. I am not saying he should give me information before it is agreed. I am saying that last year there was an abridged Estimates Volume with all of this detail and there was then a Revised Estimates Volume which was amended. I want him to publish both of those documents from last year. This year after the budget, an abridged Estimates Volume has been agreed; I would like a copy of that. When the formal process he mentioned is concluded, I would like not the inform…

However, not with the individual spending items for spending programmes.