Eoin Ó Broin

It did.

And from the Housing Commission.

And it is still going to miss its target. That is brilliant.

They do under this Government.

In the lifetime of the Government.

Hear, hear.

As the Minister knows, Sinn Féin will be supporting this legislation. I thank the officials from his Department for the very detailed briefing they provided to committee members on both the Bill and wider issues around AHB strategy and reform. It is a single-sentence Bill, so there is not an awful lot to discuss in terms of its explicit content. However, given that it is related to the funding of …

1. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the actions he intends to take in the coming months to halt the relentless rise in adult and child homelessness and to reduce the number of people presenting as homeless and accelerate the number of exits of persons currently in emergency accommodation. [54228/25]

As the Minister knows, homelessness is at the highest level since modern records began. Over 16,000 people, including 5,000 children are officially categorised as homeless and in emergency accommodation funded by the Department. Astonishingly, neither the Minister for Finance nor the Minister for public expenditure and reform even referenced homelessness yesterday. The budget book simply reference…

Yesterday, in response to the budget, Focus Ireland said: "Budget 2026 has failed to deliver for the record number of over 16,350 people now homeless as the Government did not take any decisive action on housing to help the most vulnerable in society." The Simon Communities of Ireland in a similar vein said: "It is deeply disappointing that yet again there was no mention of homeless prevention and…

The Simon Communities of Ireland went on to say yesterday, “The measures announced today will do nothing to reduce the numbers of people being forced to experience the trauma of homelessness.” What it is saying and what I want the Minister to respond to is, of the €235 million of additional funding for homeless services on the allocation to date of this year, how much will be spent on new homeless…

5. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the action he is taking to tackle high rents in the private rental sector and the increasing unaffordability of rents in the Government-funded cost rental sector. [54230/25]

The programme for Government had a clear commitment to progressively increase the renters' tax credit. Obviously, that promise was broken in yesterday's budget and as a consequence the vast majority if not all of the renters' tax credit will be swallowed up by rental increases based on the most recent data from Daft. Likewise, an increasing number of people who apply for cost rental projects are r…

Average rents for new tenants increased by over €1,000 last year and for existing renters by almost €800. Despite the Government's renter's tax credit, the majority of renters will either be worse off or marginally better off. When we change the legislation, however, those rent increases are going to be even more dramatic for people who move tenancy or enter into a new tenancy. One thing the Minis…

Prospectively or retrospectively? Apologies; I am not heckling.

So they will not apply to existing tenancies.

The potential saving for a cost-rental tenant paying an average rent of €1,500 per month would be €225. That is €2,700 a year. I hope that he would insist rather than expect that the LDA provides that. Equally, the VAT reductions on apartments could also be a helpful way for reducing the rent if the VAT reduction is passed on to the AHB or LDA through Project Tosaigh or forward purchase. Is the Mi…

Will the cost reductions to the developers be passed on to the LDA, yes or no?

This is the tenth budget I have had the opportunity to respond to as the Sinn Féin spokesperson on housing. In every single year, the Minister for housing presents a budget and tells us it will address and improve the housing situation across the State. In the 12 months that follow, house prices, rents and homelessness rise, and social and affordable housing targets that are too low to begin with …

I want to address Financial Resolution No. 4. I have to say I am not surprised that none of the Ministers from the relevant Department are here to defend it because it is quite clear they were not in favour of the introduction of this particular policy measure. There is no doubt there is a challenge in terms of affordability and viability but the suggestion that a reduction in VAT on new apartment…

The Minister is absolutely correct. There are planning permissions for 40,000 apartments that have not yet been commenced. The Minister claimed that this measure is to activate those permissions. Why then provide a VAT reduction in respect of apartments under construction? All the expenditure being provided for this measure next year is for apartments that are currently being built. It takes appro…

What does this Government have against children? Despite the enormous resources at its disposal, thousands upon thousands of children are being left behind every year. When Fine Gael took office in 2011, there were just over 600 children officially classified as homeless. Now, it is a staggering 5,000 and continuing to rise. This means that, in the 14 years that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in one sh…

It is not true.

It is not true.

He does not even have his facts straight.