O’Brien defends housing record in heated Dáil exchange

Minister For Housing Darragh O’Brien has defended his record as Minister during a heated Dáil debate last Thursday.

Statistics from the Central Statistics Office showed that 21,634 houses and apartments have been completed so far in 2024; in the same time period in 2023, that figure stood at 22,325.

On Tuesday, O’Brien told reporters that the government’s new housing targets would be “at least” 50,000 homes, but was forced to defend the figures in a heated Dáil debate on Thursday.

Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty asked the Dáil “how in the name of God has the Government delivered fewer houses so far this year than it delivered last year?”

O’Brien replied “the reality is that the quarter 3 completion figures are the highest on record,” and said that the Housing For All Target this year is 33,540.

He bullishly stated “I have consistently said we will exceed that target and I still confidently predict – the deputy and his colleagues in Sinn Féin will be disappointed – that it will be the high 30,000s to low 40,000s this year.”

The Fingal TD said “the fact of the matter is this Government delivered more new social homes last year than has been done in 50 years and will do more this year; we will achieve our social housing new-build targets this year and will exceed our affordable housing targets this year.”

Doherty, in turn, replied “home ownership has collapsed under this Government.”

“100,000 people under the age of 40 do not own their home anymore compared to when Fine Gael came into government.”

O’Brien said that housing remains “the number one societal issue for this State, unquestionably.”

“There is no self-congratulatory tone from the Government side. I was honest with people when I had the honour of being made housing Minister in 2020 that the Government was bringing in a new housing plan and was dealing with much unmet demand.”

O’Brien noted “there was a ten-year period when, for many reasons, not enough homes were being built to meet demand” (within that ten year period, Fianna Fáil was in power for one of them and supported a Fine Gael and independents government for four of those years).

It has been widely noted that when Fine Gael controlled the Housing brief between 2016 and 2020 and were reliant on Fianna Fáil support to get motions through the Dail, Eoghan Murphy’s strategy of pursuing co-living strategies set back efforts to provide housing.

In a July 2018 Dáil vote, O’Brien voted in favour of the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016 which meant that co-living become a major tenant of the Fine Gael’s housing policy, and abstained from a vote of no confidence in then-Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy in September 2018.

Notably, upon taking the Minister for Housing brief in 2020, O’Brien scrapped the co-living policy he had voted in favour of two years previously, stating “I believe this is the correct decision and it is one I have come to following careful consideration.”

Labour leader Ivana bacik said “it is a bit like saying the dog ate my homework for the Government to say this is a legacy issue and it is trying to deal with it,” to which O’Brien replied “it is your legacy.”

O’Brien said that the Government has given housing “unprecedented” investment, with €5.1 billion spent on housing in 2024, with €6 billion in funding put aside for 2025.

Northside TD Cian O’Callaghan, who serves as the Social Democrats’ housing spokesperson, said that the Government is “gaslighting” the electorate on exactly how many homes are being built.

“As we now face into an election, the Minister is asking voters to ignore forecasts from the ESRI and the Central Bank, which both say housing delivery will not exceed 33,000 homes, and data from the CSO, which confirms falling housing output,” the Dublin Bay North TD said.

“Voters deserve more than gaslighting and spin from the Minister for Housing. Instead of facing up to falling completion numbers, and outlining what the government proposes to do to turn around this disaster, the Minister is refusing to accept reality.

“That reality is that this government has no hope of delivering 40,000 homes by the end of the year and their housing plan is a failure.”

O’Brien defended his record against the opposition, saying “there are some people in here who will just pluck a figure from the sky and expect people to believe they can deliver 60,000, 70,000 or 80,000 houses in a year.”

“They come forward with plans that do not stack up, with regard to new tenures of housing and various different ideas, but the people will decide upon that.”

“We have always been very deliberate in our approach to setting targets and showing how they will be attained. A particular tool in our armoury to do that is the reform of our planning system. That is why we worked so hard to bring forward the Planning and Development Bill, which the President has signed into law.”

The bill was recently signed into law by President Higgins and was regarded as one of the last bits of outstanding business for this Government before the much-rumoured December election.

“It is the single biggest reform of our planning system in over a quarter of a century, but not all parties here supported it. It will bring clarity, consistency and certainty to our planning system, which we need to underpin the increased delivery this State needs.”