Sinn Féin says Government is ‘strangling housing delivery’

The Government has been accused of “failing” on basic public services such as water and electricity supplies, which is “strangling” housing delivery.

Sinn Féin’s finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty told the Dáil the head of water utility Uisce Eireann had said all households in Dublin face water shortages in the next five years due to the Government’s “failure to invest properly in our creaking water network”.

He also mentioned a warning by the secretary general of the Energy Department that housing delivery is at risk because of electricity supply shortages.

“What we’re talking about here, in simple terms, is we’re talking about the ability of your Government to ensure the very basics: water, electricity connections, houses. The most basic needs in any society.

“And people are going to be scratching their heads, because this state has record surpluses, so money is not the problem.

“So the problem must be the incompetence and bad decisions made over and over and over again. A Government that can’t plan and can’t get the job done when it comes to critical infrastructure, and this is strangling housing delivery.” He said a TikTok video in which Tanaiste Simon Harris said there was a housing emergency had “raised some eyebrows”.

“The reality is, after over a decade of you as minister and Fine Gael in government for nearly a decade and a half, we have serious basic issues of water and electricity that is putting the most basic right – a roof over your head – in jeopardy.” 

Mr Harris said multibillion-euro surpluses accrued by the Irish state over recent years were a result of how Fine Gael and Fianna Fail had managed the economy and would mean “a hell of a lot more money” could be spent “on water, on energy, on housing”.

“These things don’t happen by accident,” he said.

He said the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael government had overseen “a significant uplift” on housing but it had since “stalled or reached a plateau”.

“We’ve seen more than 133,000 new-build homes delivered between 2020 and 2024, and 92,500 of those homes were delivered just between 2022 and 2024 – up nearly 50% on the previous three years.

“We are going to, between now and the month of July, work on a housing plan. Not a glossy document – a targeted list of actions that we can take in relation to water, in relation to energy, in relation to planning, that will get us to 300,000 homes.

“I can assure you, we have the money, we have the capital to make this happen. What we now need is the political support across this house and in the communities to drive on delivery.

“And I hope you’ll support the establishment of a housing activation office that’s going to do exactly what you say: bring in people from Irish Water, bring in people from the local authorities, put them in an office working together to break down those silos so we deliver the homes for our people.” He accused Mr Doherty’s party of having “politicised the issue of water” and said additional funding to Uisce Eireann would solve water infrastructure issues.

“It’s hard to take a lecture from you in relation to water, after you politicised the issue of water so much to try and stymie progress in recent years, and you continue to mislead people about the Government’s intention in relation to Irish Water.

“If we can provide them with significant additional capital funding over the summer period, with the review of the National Development Plan, they will be able to – I’m sure you’ll be delighted to know – provide enough water infrastructure to deliver and enable the delivery of the homes we need.”