The Deputy should stop that sort of pretence that she goes on with all of the time. Sinn Féin wants to support those on very high incomes with energy credits.

That is what she said. We decided not to do that. Sinn Féin wanted us to give energy credits to everybody, irrespective of income. Sinn Féin wants to give millionaires and people on €200,000 an energy credit. We have said that we will give child support payments the biggest increase. Children over 12 will get €16 extra a week out of this budget up to €78 a week. Children under 12 will get an increase of €8 up to €58 a week. Job seeker's benefit allowance has been increased by €10 per week, as have State pensions an…

The Deputy had her chance to speak. We made our choices. We prioritised services for people.

I 100% reject Deputy Bacik's false narrative on the Government's position on housing and her vagueness about the Labour Party's position. I sum up the Labour Party's housing policy and the attitude of its members to housing as: whatever the Government proposes, we oppose.

It is extraordinary-----

----that the Deputy gave a big opening critique of overall Government policy and then zeroed in on apartment standards because her party opposes that decision. That is all the Labour Party can do. The Deputy told an untruth when she said that the Government has no social housing targets. She knows full well that the housing plan is very clear-----

Deputy Bacik did say that. She said that we had no social housing plans. The housing plan states that we will deliver 12,000 new social homes every year over the lifetime of the plan. We have significantly transformed the scale and pace of social housing delivery over the past five years. That has to be acknowledged. I have looked at the Labour Party's manifesto on housing. It is so vague as to be unbelievable. It is bereft of any depth or substance. The Labour Party has put no flesh on the bone of any of its propo…

I did.

I do not.

Actually, no. People are saying the VAT cut will have an impact. The response from the market is quite clear that it is a significant step in narrowing the viability gap to get more apartments built. We gave the Land Development Agency its legislative underpinning-----

-----and will further add to its role. We have capitalised the LDA very significantly. If you look at the mortgage drawdowns, for example, the percentage increase in first-time buyer mortgage drawdowns has increased significantly from about 23% in 2015 to about 35% today. We are making progress but affordability continues to be an issue. We have a growing population. If we keep on opposing everything-----

That is what the Deputy is doing, come off it. If we are to hang around, no disrespect to anybody, waiting for this and that institute to get around to building houses, we will be waiting a long time. There has been too much of that in this country.

We need to build 50,000 to 60,000 per annum. We will not get there with Labour's policies.

The Government has set a target of 300,000 houses over the lifetime of this plan.

I am sorry, the Deputy has had her say. I say this respectfully to the Deputy. She uses language about a "radical reset of housing policy". What in the name of God does it mean? The Deputy has never put any flesh on the bone of anything she has ever proposed. She is bereft of policy. What is the radical reset? Spell it out.

All I ever get from Deputy Cairns's party is, "We're against this, we're against that, we're opposing that and we're doing that", for the past number of years.

It does not have a radical policy. It is nice language. It appeals to those who, without question, are under pressure, but there is no substance or depth to it.

Absolutely none. By the way, under Housing for All, we exceeded our targets - an inconvenient truth for the Opposition. The problem was people then said the targets were not high enough.

The bottom line is the population is growing exponentially and has grown. The pressures are enormous. We need to build at scale and at pace. The housing plan has substance in it in terms of proposals to do that. We did not wait for it. We decided straight in to do, for example, the national planning framework to get more land zoned for housing. Deputy Cairns will have problems with that on the ground and no doubt her people will oppose it where there is extra zoning and so on. In terms of apartments, we are not sta…

It will not build a house this year, next year or the year after.