Finally the Minister for housing says something about housing at the end of his speech. There was nothing to say about housing by the Minister for housing.

Hear, hear.

Tell that to families who are homeless

There is nothing new, record rents, record house prices.

Well said.

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Housing Loans Regulations 2021 so as to allow applications to local authorities for housing loans by persons who are remaining in the family home following a divorce or legal separation and who need mortgage finance to buyout their former partner’s share of the family home. As the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, knows, the local authority home loan is a very valuable and long-standing support for people looking to buy their own home. A num…

I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

Today, the Central Statistics Office, CSO, published its latest property price index. I am sure the Tánaiste has seen the headlines. House prices have risen yet again quite significantly, but one of the interesting details in the CSO report is that the price of apartments has skyrocketed. The price of apartments in January was up 9% State-wide on the same period last year. Excluding Dublin, they were up an astonishing 12%. What that means, of course, is that for the people who invariably end up renting many of thos…

On Friday, the Minister's Department published the latest homelessness figures. They show record highs of homelessness, with more than 17,000 people, including more than 5,000 children, homeless. Since Deputy Browne has been Minister, homelessness has increased by 12% and child homelessness has increased by a significant 16%. Will the Minister set out what additional actions he intends to take to reduce the flow of adults and children into homelessness and get people into emergency accommodation more quickly?

The Minister's party and Fine Gael have effectively been in government together since 2016 and since then the total number of adults who have been forced into emergency accommodation because of their failed housing policies numbers 55,000. I ask the Minister to think about that for a moment. That is more than a capacity crowd at the Aviva Stadium. It is greater than the population of Longford or, indeed, of Drogheda. Rather than this being the Government's priority, the policies it is implementing are making this c…

Yet the numbers of adults, children, families, singles and pensioners continues to rise almost every single month. By pushing up market rents, this is going to get worse. When we published our analysis based on RTB data of the cost of the market rent reset, the Minister rubbished it. He said it was not true. Yet, we already have evidence. A few days after the introduction of the new change, a tenant renting a one-bedroom apartment in Leopardstown moved out. The apartment was being rented for just over €2,000 until …

The Minister has not in his own constituency.

The Minister missed his target again. What was the target? He missed the target.

The Minister has been in government for a decade.

The Minister missed his targets. He should be honest.

I do not think I shouted.

I politely interjected. The Minister's target was 10,000 and he missed it.

Fianna Fáil slashed capital funding for social housing.

The price of cost-rental accommodation is far too high. There is a growing number of working people, singles and couples, who earn too much to access social housing but because of the application of the affordability rule, they are not able to access cost rental. Can the Minister confirm that he shares my concern with respect to this matter and set out what he is going to do to assist the Land Development Agency, LDA, and approved housing bodies to bring down the cost of cost rental so it is affordable for all thos…

Earlier this week the Minister visited Oscar Traynor Road, where there are two- and three- bedroom cost-rental units. The two-bedroom units cost almost €1,600 per month and the three-bedroom units cost almost €1,800 per month. That means people need a net income of €54,000 to be able to access the two-bedroom units and €64,000 for the three-bedroom units. This tells us that a huge group of people who are not eligible for social housing, but whose incomes are below those levels, are locked out. Approximately 26% of …