The Taoiseach has defended a controversial video which has been shared by the Department of Housing, which provides advice for adults forced to move back home with their parents.
The video, produced by the State's Housing Agency with youth organisation Spun Out, has been attacked by the opposition and criticised online.
Speaking before the Cabinet meeting this morning Micheál Martin said: "Sometimes we need to avoid kneejerk reactions to genuine initiatives by organisations such as SpunOut, the Housing Agency, and look at it in the broader context.
"The big issue is to provide more housing as fast as we can and that’s what we are doing.
"We have a specific target in mind in terms of homelessness this year, but also more broadly in terms of getting more housing built as a result of the housing plan.
"The challenge is 300,000 over the next five years."
Labour's Ivana Bacik said a video advising young people on how to cope with living in their parents house is a "move beyond satire".
"It would be comical if it wasn't so serious," she said.
Ms Bacik added that the Government's housing policies look like "busy work" rather than a "blueprint for change".
She said "all the trends" are going in the wrong direction.
Ms Bacik said building targets will be missed again this year, construction activity has declined, and the number of children homeless is "shockingly climbing" towards the 5,500 mark.
Meanwhile, People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said the video "would be laughable if it wasn’t so disgraceful".
He said his son has moved back in with him and "doesn’t need a Government video to tell him to do household chores".
"What he wants from the Government is some prospect of being able to afford a rental property or to maybe buy a house at some point in the future," said Mr Boyd Barrett.
He said the Government is "admitting defeat" on the housing crisis.
Mr Boyd Barrett said the video features young people telling others how to avoid conflict with their parents "over issues like overcrowding and household chores".
He said the Government is "essentially putting up its hands and saying we cannot solve the housing crisis".
Mr Boyd Barrett said the Government is suggesting that young people "do the dishes to avoid conflict when they are forced to move home".
"It’s pathetic," he said.
SpunOut 'directly responding to challenges young people face' - O'Gorman
Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman said the video came from SpunOut who are "directly responding to the challenges that young people face".
He said there is a real need in "thousands of households".
Mr O’Gorman said the Department of Housing sharing this video is an "indictment on the Department".
He criticised "the failure of housing policy, led by the Department of Housing".
Department of Housing 'misconceived'
Minister for Housing James Browne said his Department was "misconceived" in sharing a controversial video which provides advice for adults forced to move back home with their parents.
During a Committee on Housing, the minister said an official from the Department of Housing who was "well-intentioned, maybe misconceived" reposted it.
"I think it was misconceived in terms of reposting it," said Minister Browne, adding that there was "no conspiracy".
Mr Browne said these young people are why the Government is "trying to activate the market so we can get more homes delivered".
"By increasing the supply is the only way that those people are going to get out of those bedrooms and into somewhere where they can live independently, safely and securely," he said.
The minister said the video was prepared by SpunOut and "put out by young people to talk to young people".
"I want to really acknowledge the good work done by those young people," he said.
"We are in a housing crisis. We do have a very serious homelessness situation that I want to bring to an end."
He was responding to a question by Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne, who said the video was a "let them eat cake" moment for the Department.
Mr Hearne said it has "really upset people".
"This has actually caused huge hurt and frustration to the hundreds of thousands who are locked at home, who are actually in a form of hidden homelessness," he said.
Report reveals 'huge hole' in Govt housing plan
Sinn Féin's Eoin Ó Broin said a report has revealed a "huge hole" in the "very centre" of the Government's housing plan.
The report by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland showed that despite help from the State, affordability remains a huge issue for buyers.
The study said that sales prices for a two-bedroom suburban apartment range from €480,000 to €650,000.
To afford these, a first-time buyer couple would require a combined salary ranging between €108,000 and €146,000.
During a Housing Committee meeting, Mr Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing if he was concerned by "significant" increases outlined in the report.
"You're not going to be able to deliver anything close to affordability even in cost-rental schemes with these all-in developments," he said.
"Do you accept that there is now a problem here that you didn’t fully anticipate in your plan," he asked.
Mr Ó Broin asked if the Government’s housing plan would be revised to reflect this new information, calling it information the minister "clearly" did not have when he produced the plan.
He also said the Government has reduced apartment design standards to allow "higher density, smaller and darker" developments.
In response, Mr Browne said apartment specifications are being "brought back in line with what would be standard across the European Union".
"We have to get them built," said Mr Browne.
'Viability and affordability'
The Minister for Housing said his Department has taken significant measures to support "viability and affordability".
In his opening statement to the committee, he called housing "the defining social and economic challenge of our time".
Mr Ó Broin asked who is going to buy apartments at the prices detailed in the report.
"Housing bodies won’t be able to buy them," he said. "How can you increase supply when the prices of the units are so high that there will be no buyers?
"There won’t actually be a market for apartments given their cost."
Mr Browne said he is "very conscious" of the "cost of delivering apartments and housing in this country".
"That’s why we have taken significant viability measures," he said.
Mr Ó Broin asked the minister if he had "even read the report today".
"The costs are still too high," said Mr Ó Broin.
Mr Browne said the Government does not take any report "as gospel".
"We take into consideration any report," he said. "But we also don’t blindly accept any report either."
"We need to get apartments and houses built and we need people to be able to afford them. That’s what we are doing."
Eviction ban suggested by Social Democrats
Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne asked the Government to introduce a three-year eviction ban, raising the case of a solicitor who is about to be made homeless and cannot find somewhere to rent below €2,500 a month.
Mr Browne said an eviction ban "would kill supply".
"Your focus seems to be being populist to protect everybody who’s in rental accommodation at the moment," he said. "I don’t have that luxury."
Mr Hearne said it is wrong to say he is being populist.
"I am saying this because it is the humanitarian crisis that is going on," he said.
"I would think and hope that you would want to do something more. This is an emergency."
Additional reporting by Róisín Cullen
