State land for public housing, not for the Taoiseach's developer friends.

I raised with the Taoiseach on a number of occasions the need to end restrictions in maternity hospitals for pregnant women and their partners. I am sure the Taoiseach has heard, as I have, the really heartbreaking stories from many people about the hardship this has caused. Put simply, partners are not visitors and they must have access, along with the pregnant women, for appointments, scans, labour and postnatal care. The Taoiseach has confirmed on a number of occasions that it is his view, shared by the Chief Me…

There are worrying aspects to of all this, leaving aside the delay. Can the Taoiseach tell us with any certainty whether the work will be completed in October? Aside from the costs, which are shaping up to be astronomical, quite frankly, and the slow pace, this investigation is starting to look and feel very much like a tribunal. The idea of these commissions was to allow for a thorough investigation of matters such as this, which are of huge public concern. We should not disregard the fact that there was an absolu…

The National Economic and Social Council's view is that Ireland must evolve from a speculative and highly cyclical system to a permanently affordable, stable and more sustainable system of housing. The council’s recommended actions to deliver change in the area of housing are concerned with bridging the supply gap by actively managing land for the public good and the affordability gap by engineering in permanent affordability. This is important work and the Taoiseach’s Minister for Housing, Local Government and Her…

The word I used was "squandering".

There is not much I can say in 20 seconds.

I will take the 20 seconds to inform the Taoiseach, because he may not know, that his Fianna Fáil colleagues on Dublin City Council voted against the Oscar Traynor proposal because it was flawed. I have to break it to the Taoiseach that the days of gifting vast swathes of public land to private developers are over, as far as we are concerned. I had hoped, given the experience we have had of boom and bust and the hardship that has emanated from a broken housing market, that the Taoiseach would also have learned that…

Some Fianna Fáil councillors have learned that so, who knows, perhaps there is hope for the Taoiseach yet.

I am not a bit sensitive. I am not remotely sensitive.

Not at all.

I am all for housing. I oppose homelessness.

The Taoiseach should get cracking.

At the weekend, the Taoiseach stated that housing is the number one crisis facing young people. This morning, a report published by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, has highlighted again the crushing cost of housing, including extortionate rents, which far exceed their pre-crash heights, as well as a collapse in homeownership amongst this generation of young adults. It is not lost on these young people, their parents or their grandparents that the housing crisis was created by Fianna Fáil, which le…

The welcome mat was laid out for these investment funds long before Covid-19 was ever heard of. The Taoiseach should not try to hide behind the pandemic as an excuse for his evident failures. The evidence of the Government's failures are everywhere to be seen. The Taoiseach recognises that we are in a crisis and it is about supply. Supply needs to be met by building public housing on public lands. The day and time of the developer, the vulture fund and the private investment fund being king must end. That is a jour…

I did not say that.

What is the Taoiseach doing about investment funds?

What is the Taoiseach doing about investment funds?

Let me assure the Taoiseach, the Government is messing it up without any assistance from me.

When?

He does not oppose that; he enables it.