Harris has already broken promises on housing says O’Callaghan

Simon Harris has only been Taoiseach for two weeks, but he has already broken a key promise according to Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan.

O’Callaghan cited a speech made by Harris at the Fine Gael Ard Fheis in March where he promised to build 250,000 homes in five years, which Harris has now seemingly backtracked on.

“The new Taoiseach made big and bold promises of 50,000 homes a year during the recent Fine Gael Ard Fheis – clearly more concerned about a soundbite than how he would actually deliver on this commitment,” O’Callaghan said.

“It hasn’t taken long for the row back on these promises to begin, with Simon Harris now claiming the 250,000 figure is ‘roughly where I expect the landing zone to be’.”

O’Callaghan said that the Taoiseach is “finally facing up to the reality that the Government he is leading is incapable of getting to grips with the housing crisis and unable to deliver on its promises.”

The Dublin Bay North TD said “this Government has failed to deliver 9,527 social homes they have promised since taking office.”

“The delivery of affordable housing has been even worse. The new ‘Housing for All’ progress report boasts that ‘2,500 social, affordable purchase and cost rental homes have now either been delivered, contracted or recommended to proceed to procurement’.

“Unsurprisingly there is no mention that this Government had promised 9,600 affordable homes, which should have been signed, sealed and delivered in the last two years alone,” he said.

The Social Democrats housing spokesperson said that Government has failed to spend over €1 billion of its capital housing budget since taking office in 2020

“These are the facts missing from the spin-laden ‘Housing for All’ update,” he noted.

He said that Harris is “a Taoiseach coming in with big promises, but there’s the same failure to deliver.”