Ó’Broin accuses government of lying about housing targets during election

Sinn Féin TD and housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin has reaffirmed his claims that the government parties lied to the electorate ahead of the 2024 general election about housing targets.

Prior to the 2024 general election, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris asserted that 40,000 homes were built in Ireland in 2024; further analysis showed that just 30,168 homes were built that year, below the government’s own targets of 33,450.

Ó Broin, TD for Dublin Mid-West, has attempted to get a straight answer out of the government parties; did the government parties know that housing targets were not going to be met, and if so, why did they use the 40,000 figure when it was apparent that figure wasn’t going to be hit?

Next week, the government will introduce (and likely pass) legislation which opposition parties say will be “the end of Rent Pressure Zones as we know them.”

Minister for Housing James Browne said that rents have seen an increase in Ireland in recent years due to a lack of supply, and that the new legislation would bring “security of tenure” to renters.

“Rents are only going in one direction. They will go up and up unless we increase the supply of apartments and homes across this country,” Browne said.

Browne, who was first elected to the Dáil in 2016 along with Ó Broin, criticised what he called the “short-term populism” of the opposition with regard to tackling the housing crisis despite Fianna Fáil backing Fine Gael in a confidence and supply agreement until 2020 and leading the government since 2020.

“Members of the opposition seem to think that anything to do with bringing private finance into delivery is a dirty word. We are driving the supply,” he said.

Toronto and Sydney, popular destinations for Ireland’s young emigrants, are in the grips of a housing crisis which has been brought about in large part due to the influence of private finance in the housing sector.

Ó Broin asserted that the government’s changes to the rental market, which will allow more of a private sector influence in delivering housing, will only result in higher rents for “hard-pressed renters.”

“The only certainty the government is going create with this legislation is that hard-pressed renters who are paying rip-off rents are going to have to pay even more. That is the only certainty,” he remarked.

He reaffirmed Sinn Féin’s stance on the issue, which involves a temporary ban on rent increases, giving renters a relief (which already exists in the form of the renter tax credit) and increasing the supply of housing.

Ó Broin told the Dáil, “we have shown the Minister how it will be costed, but the only people it is listening to are its old pals in Irish institutional property, one of whom is the former general secretary of his party, who asked for what? He asked for a market reset, reduced apartment standards and a VAT cut that nobody needs.”

In coalition talks in late 2024, Labour were invited for talks with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and, realising they had leverage with 11 TDs, demanded the creation of a state housing agency to increase housing supply; their demand was rejected, and the government sought the support of independents instead.

During the same debate, Ó Broin’s housing counterpart in the Social Democrats, Rory Hearne, said “this housing approach has not worked, and it is not going to work.”

“It is absolutely disgraceful that the government is introducing a measure that it knows will lead to higher rents. Will the Minister answer the following question: does he accept that these measures are going lead to higher rents? He is so disconnected from people.”

The Northside TD predicted, “there is going to be a significant public backlash to this because people will see what the reality is. It is a decision for investors’ funds, and that is why the government is allowing rents to rise.”

“The government is completely out of touch, and the Minister is too, to be honest. He has been captured. He has gone into the Ministry for Housing and been captured by the investor funds.”

The government parties’ rejection of a state-led approach to tackling the housing crisis and an embrace of market forces is a throwback to the government’s ill-fated approach to housing between 2016 and 2020, an approach which spawned the housing crisis and led to Sinn Féin’s overperformance in the 2020 general election.

During that time, Ó Broin became a vocal critic of the government’s housing policy, and said he would be opposing changes to Ireland’s rental laws “tooth and nail.”

“Renters will be screwed again, and we will highlight this month after month, year after year, as supply does not increase but rents do.”

Minister Browne said, “these lines are on repeat from the opposition. Deputy Ó Broin keeps coming back in and saying that Sinn Féin has provided alternatives and never repeats them. The reason he never repeats is they were soundly rejected by the people in the general election. It is the same old line. He says them again and again, but he actually does not.”

Ó Broin replied, “that is not true. You actually lied in the election. You said you would build 40,000 homes. You never did it.”

“You are misleading the House, and your party lied during the election. Those are the facts,” he said.

Ó Broin said it was a “matter of public record” that Fianna Fáil TDs Darragh O’Brien, Micheál Martin, Fine Gael TD Simon Harris and former Fine Gael TD Paschal Donohoe “lied about housing completions during the election.”

Browne said, “the use of that kind of language epitomises the fact that the Deputy has no answers, his aim being to make headline accusations.”

Ó Broin said that the Minister was “defending the indefensible”, rising rents and what he called “government dishonesty.”

Fine Gael’s Junior Minister at the Department of Housing, John Cummins, said that Ó Broin had “no respect” for the chair or the Dáil.

Ó Broin remarked, “I have no respect for a Minister who is presiding over record homelessness, record rents and a record housing crisis.”

Speaking after the latest round of homeless figures, which showed that 16,996 people were availing of homeless services in Ireland in November 2025, Ó Broin said, “it is clear that government housing policy is driving record increases in homelessness.”

“Without a radical reset of housing policy, including an emergency package of measures to reduce and end homelessness, as proposed by Sinn Féin and others, then this crisis will only get worse in 2026,” he said.

Following the February 2016 general election, protracted coalition talks meant that a government couldn’t be formed until May 2016.

When the 32nd Dáil sat in May 2016 to re-elect Enda Kenny as Taoiseach, the Central Statistics Office noted that 6906 people were in homeless accommodation on the night of the Census in April 2016, the most up-to-date figures at that time.

Nearly a decade later, that figure has increased by 146%.