Minister attempts to retreat from claims Government ‘winning battle’ on housing

By Cillian Sherlock and Cate McCurry, PA

Enterprise Minister Peter Burke has attempted to row back on claims he made that the Government is “winning” the battle on housing.

The Fine Gael minister said he was “misquoted” and denied making the comments at the weekend.

The Central Bank has projected that the Government will miss its own housing targets by a wide margin for the next three years, having also underdelivered in 2024.

When this was to put to Mr Burke, he said he would “contest strongly” that the Government’s housing plan was failing, adding that the Government had met its targets “at scale” in 2023 and 2022.

On RTÉ’s The Week In Politics, Mr Burke said: “I’m trying to explain exactly what we’re doing and how we are winning this battle.”

He added: “We’re starting to turn the tide. It’s going to take time. Absolutely, it will take time, I have no doubt in that.”

His comments were criticised by the opposition, including Sinn Féin.

Asked if he wanted to clarify his comments, Mr Burke said: “I was very clear in that, in my contribution on The Week In Politics, that we have a huge journey to go.

“I really articulated the frustration of so many people, so many young people right across the country, who cannot get the keys to their aspiration of having a new home when they want it, and that we have a significant period of time to go.

“I think it’s very unfair to be categorised in that manner. I know more than anyone, [as a] frontline politician who is doing clinics every single week of my life that the pressure is very significant.

“But as a Government, we have to keep trying to change the dial.

“It’s important that this Government, particularly in the first part of the Government, that we renew our emphasis to really critically meet in terms of the cabinet subcommittee every month and do everything we can to get as many more new homes into the economy.”

He claimed that there have been 64,000 new house commencements in the last year.

“That’s up about 75 per cent, so there is good hope for the future. But one thing I think is, on the balance of fairness, I don’t think it should be misquoted either, I think the context of the conversation should be put in,” he added.

Asked if he still believes the Government is “winning” the battle on the housing crisis, the Minister said: “I didn’t say that. You’re really misquoting me again, so you’re trying to continue on the conversation.

“I was very clear that, as I said, so many people haven’t got the chance of getting their new home that they deserve, which is their hope and dream in life.

“As a government, we have to continue to supply new homes. So 26,000 new first-time buyers getting the keys to a new home last year – that’s a record since 2007, we know we’re building more social homes since 1975.

“We’re commencing the Bill now over the next number of months, which will be critical for facilitating large-scale capital investment.

“That’s going to be very important.

Asked if he agreed with Mr Burke’s comments, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said: “I think we’ve made progress on housing, but we need to do much more.

“The population is growing very fast in Ireland, has grown very fast in Ireland and I think relative to what was happening five or six years ago, we’re building more houses, but we need to be building more houses and the challenge is to get more houses built as fast as we possibly can and that’s what we’re working on.”