Ivana Bacik: 17,000 homeless - Poolbeg social homes at risk

Taoiseach, the housing crisis continues to cut deep. The numbers in homelessness remain shockingly high. Over 17,000 people in emergency accommodation, including 5,583 children. An appalling statistic and each figure representing an individual human tragedy. While the Dáil is in recess, sadly many more people are likely to see an eviction notice land in their letterbox. And all of us know of those who are directly affected. Like the young man who contacted me this week. He and his neighbours are being evicted at the end of the month with nowhere to go. Or like the young woman I'm supporting who was evicted into homelessness more than a year ago now. She has four children, two with significant disabilities, one of whom requires 24-hour medical care, and she has yet to be housed. She's relying on the good will of family and friends to keep a roof over her head. Another mother working full-time but also evicted into homelessness a year ago. As a result, she has seen a deterioration in her youngest child who has additional needs. I've supported her as she has been applying to every government support scheme available, but nothing has come good for her. And incredibly, her family has been deemed ineligible for priority treatment on exceptional grounds. Her ordeal should be unthinkable, but sadly it's no longer a rarity and all of us will know of other families in similar situations. Because under your government, homelessness has, sadly, been normalised and evictions have continued apace, including mass evictions. Your government's housing policies have failed. Policies on shed sits, on evictions and rent hikes, on vacancy and dereliction. But above all, policies have failed to deliver on homes, on social and affordable housing. Take the Irish glass bottle site down the road in Poulbeg, where nearly 4,000 homes are set to be provided. But at the weekend, letters uncovered by the Irish Independent revealed that the delivery of the social and affordable component of housing there is under threat. Taoiseach, you know there's a long history to this development. You will know it's the subject of a good-faith agreement between the Department of Housing, the developer, Dublin City Council and local residents, an agreement providing for delivery of 900 social and affordable homes in an area where housing is desperately needed, where people are living in damp, mouldy homes in Pearse House and Markievicz House and other places, with stairwells literally falling down. In an area where market rents are sky high, a glass bottle apartment rented privately costs more than €4,000 per month. Yet the Minister for Housing has been told that provision of much-needed social and affordable homes may now be delayed. So where will my constituents go, Taoiseach? Mere weeks ago, Minister Brown wrote, The most powerful tool we have to tackle homelessness is delivery of social housing. It is possible if we are determined enough to use every single lever at our disposal. So Taoiseach, will your government use every lever at your disposal to tackle the housing crisis? And will you ensure delivery of the social and affordable homes promised at the Irish glass bottle site and indeed across every community where they are so badly needed? Thank you Deputy Taoiseach. We'll use every lever and I accept that housing is the social issue of our time, no question about that. And we are using every lever, but from time to time the opposition object to almost many of the levers that we deploy in respect of housing. But just going to pick you up on social housing. Between 2020 and 2025, we've built 60,000 social homes, sorry, have delivered through build, acquisition and leasing. 60,000. 9,000, new build social homes in 2025. That was the highest annual total in the state's history. We have made huge progress on social housing since 2020 in terms of the numbers that are being built. We've afforded 22,400, sorry, close to 23,000 social homes are now in design or construction at the end of 2025. And we're targeting about 72,000 new social homes by 2030. But in addition to that, in terms of new starter homes and so on, we're making progress. 36,000 houses built last year. We will build more this year and we need to build more again in 2027. And that is the objective. And if you look at planning permissions alone, the momentum is strong. Permissions granted for 34,000 houses, new homes into 12 months to the end of Q1 2026. That's up 8% year on year. 13,000 commensions for the first five months of 2026. That's up 161% year on year. We've outlined the housing infrastructure fund. That will be significant. That will unblock about 86,000 units. Real investment in dwellings is up close to 20% in 2025. Construction employment is up 33% at 195,000. Development land deals up 55%. Best quarters since 2019. HBFI loan book grew 25%. 1 billion housing infrastructure investment fund announced. The number of first time buyer mortgage drawdowns, 27,000, 27,000 and a half in 2025. Highest volume since 2007. First time buyers in May 26 count for 59% of all mortgage approvals. That's up 44% on 2022 and so on. So progress has been made. The issue for us is to get to 50,000 per annum and to do that on a sustainable basis over a 10 year period in my view to meet the population growth and demand. And homelessness is a far more complex issue now than it was four or five years ago. There's many factors in homelessness. Not least the migration issue. The migration issue in particular is a significant impact. And I would say to you that across the board we have taken very significant initiatives opposed by the opposition to deliver housing. And I still think the government's program is the most substantive one and the most effective and impactful one of any other set of proposals that have been tabled by any other political party. Well Taoiseach you can quote figures. I've already quoted to you the shocking figure of those in homelessness. But let me also quote the figures just this week from the AIB Construction Purchasing Managers Index that shows residential building contracting for the third consecutive month. Construction activity slowing, a sharp slowdown in June, dropping to 45.4 from 50.2, below 50, a sharp contraction in activity. The debacle over the Pool Beg site I use to illustrate the difficulty that your government is in because your over-reliance on the private sector has simply failed to deliver homes at the necessary scale and construction is slowing including residential construction. Yes the private sector has a significant role but the state needs to take on a far more prominent and proactive role and that's at the heart of Labour's proposals and indeed the proposals of other opposition parties. And central to provision is that promises on delivery must be kept. Should developers at the Irish Glass Bottle site fail to honour the legally binding 15% planning conditions there's going to be legal action will have to be taken. Thank you Deputy Taoiseach. And it's very hard for my constituents. Deputy please. At the behest of the Chair the Taoiseach will respond. Should I stop? Really? And by the way I think your proposal would I mean the idea of setting up a new state-owned construction company would take years and wouldn't have any impact on house building right now or for the next five years for that matter and you've produced a couple of pages on it no fleshing out of it that's the bottom line. We already had the Land Development Agency and that is delivering well so why create a new one? It doesn't work like that. Billions are going into the Land Development Agency. You know it's like that's how sort of thin your proposals are. Genuinely there is no real substance coming from the opposition on housing in terms of actually adding. We do the exemptions for the back garden and so on. You call it you know you just dismiss it. We do rural housing you dismiss that. Department guidance. I mean anything we try and do. You take the help to buy was opposed by the opposition. The first home scheme was opposed by you. I mean and that has helped enormously young people and first-time buyers. So much so that the number of first-time buyer mortgages is way ahead now of any other type of mortgages.