Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I accept that you cannot necessarily do everything overnight but also, it is clearly set out by the commission that there needs to be a dramatic increase, and it starts that increase from the coming year - 61,000, if you include student accommodation, is what it is setting out. If you add in student accommodation, it has it at 61,000, and that is up from 33,000. That is almost, in units per year needed, pretty close to a doubling. The Government cannot necessarily - or at least, the Minister can argue it cannot - do that overnight, for all sorts of reasons such as capacity constraints and so on but surely the Government has got to start.

The Minister said there is some extra money overall for the Department but on the specific capital housing allocation, let us be clear - €2.5 billion is what is written in the Minister's statement, which he read out. That is for housing capital, that is, the building of housing. Last year, on the Department of housing's website, on budget day, €2.6 billion was allocated, which is €100 million more than the Minister appears to be allocating this year. To me, that is stunning. Even if the Government cannot do it all overnight, there is less of a housing allocation in 2025 than there was last year for capital to the Department, and the Minister is not factoring in any increases whatsoever on foot of the Housing Commission report, which says we need to nearly double housing output. Presumably, that would mean a very significant increase in capital expenditure by the Department.