Sinn Féin does not have a comprehensive housing plan and has “nothing but a collection of soundbites and a few pages”, Tánaiste Micheál Martin has said.
Mr Martin said the party’s policies were “anti-first-time buyers” while insisting the Government had “significantly turned the dial” in relation to house construction.
There were heated exchanges during Leaders’ Questions in the Dáil on Thursday between the Fianna Fáil leader and Sinn Féin’s deputy leader, Pearse Doherty, over the housing crisis.
Mr Doherty said every day the Government was in office, more and more young people were being forced to live at home with their parents well into their 30s or deciding to emigrate.
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The Donegal TD said the Government was failing to deliver genuine affordable homes that working people needed while it was “widely acknowledged” that its housing targets were far too low and “wholly inadequate” to meet demand.
Mr Doherty added that social and affordable housing targets had been missed “every single year for the last four years”.
The Sinn Féin TD also spoke of a woman hospital worker living in Dublin with a good salary aged in her 30s who could not find “a single place to live that is somewhat even reasonable”.
“Most of the apartments in the area are nearly €2,000 a month, and that doesn’t include the bills, and this person tells us that they are completely hopeless,” he said.
In response, the Tánaiste said Mr Doherty was “wrong” and that “shouting and roaring” wasn’t going to change the fact that the Government had “significantly turned the dial in relation to house construction” with over 30,000 homes built last year.
He said targets would be exceeded this year while housing commencements and completions were both up 14 per cent on last year.
Mr Martin claimed that Sinn Féin hadn’t “put in the hard work” when it came to housing.
“When it comes to young people in this country – look at Sinn Féin policies – you don’t do anything for first-time buyers, your policies are anti-first-time buyers,” he said.
Mr Martin said Sinn Féin would get rid of the Help to Buy scheme while the party opposed the First Home scheme and the Land Development Agency and were “serial objectors” to housing on the ground.
“It’s about time that Sinn Féin came forward with substance and not empty rhetoric and soundbites,” he added.
The Tánaiste said 400 first-time buyers were now buying homes each week, and that the highest number of people drew down mortgages on their first home last year since 2008.
Mr Doherty said the Government’s response to any of the crises that his party pointed out was “but, but, but, Sinn Féin”.
He said rents, house prices and homelessness figures were all up but “somehow it’s always Sinn Féin’s fault”.
