The Government has been accused of a “litany of failure” in its response to the housing and homeless crises.

Speaking in the Dáil this afternoon, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin noted that home ownership in Ireland is now at its lowest level since 1971.

He was speaking after the Government introduced 19 mores Rent Pressure Zones around the country in a bid to tackle surging rental costs.

"Locked out"

Deputy Martin said Government policy has made home ownership impossible for the majority of people.

“The younger generation essentially have been locked out of home ownership and have lost confidence in ever being able to afford to buy a house,” he said.

“35 years is now the new average before people can actually buy a house.

“In the 90s it was at 26-years-of-age.”

"Backfired and failed"

He said Government policy of relying on the private market to solve the country’s housing issues has “backfired and failed” – and accused the Government of attempting to engineer a move from home ownership to rental.

“At 68% home ownership is at the lowest level since 1971,” he said. “That is the reality.”

He noted that the current budget for rental schemes is “anywhere up to €900m” which is in the  “billions of Euro when one goes back over the last five or six years.”

“In terms of house building, either council houses or affordable houses, it has dwarfed any of that,” he said.

“That was a clear policy to engineer and to contrive people to move away from ever owning homes to renting.”

Home ownership

The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he is “somebody who is very committed to home ownership” adding that the current level of 68% is “much higher than in most European countries.”

“In order to deliver high levels of home ownership, we need the private market and the private sector because it has never been the case that Governments build houses for people to own.

“Governments build houses for people to rent for those who are not able to own their own house.”

“We need the private market so that people can purchase and own their own homes.”

He said the housing supply “can only be ramped up so quickly” in the wake of the financial crash and insisted the Government was meeting its new build targets.