Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien has faced scrutiny over his plan which he has said will tackle the housing crisis and end homelessness in Ireland by 2030.
The Government has described it as an “unprecedented” housing strategy and has vowed to pump €4 billion into housing every year and pledges to deliver 300,000 homes by 2030.
But Minister O’Brien has found himself having to defend the plan which has been criticised by Opposition TDs and academics.
Minister O’Brien also faced scrutiny for refusing to debate with Sinn Fein’s housing spokesman Eoin O’Broin despite being asked by RTÉ PrimeTime and Virgin Media’s Tonight show.
However, on Friday Minister O’Brien said he will debate Mr O’Broin stating on RTÉ that Ó Broin “had a high opinion of himself.”
Get the latest news headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email alerts
Social Democrats housing spokesman Cian O’Callaghan said the Government’s new target to provide just 240 Housing First tenancies per year to tackle homelessness is not good enough.
He said: “Tonight, more than 8,000 people will sleep in emergency homeless accommodation.
“This includes 930 families and 2,129 children.
“This is in addition to all of the people who will sleep rough on our streets.”
He said the Housing for All plan does not include a commitment to deliver a significant number of affordable purchase homes as promised by Fianna Fáil in the last general election.
He told RTÉ that Fianna Fáil were going to build 10,000 affordable homes each year that they were in government, but that it is "missing" from this plan.
He said: "They are talking about 1,000 affordable purchase homes potentially next year, moving to 2,000 affordable after that.
“So over the lifetime of Government they are not going to deliver the amount of affordable purchase homes they were promising in black and white, in their manifesto that they would deliver each year."
Launching the plan on Thursday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the country needed 27,000 workers to help build homes and achieve the Government’s targets.
But the CEO of the Irish Plant Contractors Association, Brian Coogan, has said while the announcement of 300,000 new homes by 2030 is welcomed, the big issue is finding the workers to build them.
He said the Government needs to look at recruiting workers from overseas and also encourage Irish tradespeople to return home to Ireland to work.
He told RTÉ there has been a large period of "under-investment" in construction and the industry is calling for sustained schemes to train more people.
Get the latest news headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email alerts
