TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has defended giving incorrect housing figures to the public in the run-up to the election, saying that the government had believed that they would deliver near the 40,000 target of completed builds by the end of the final quarter.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Radio One with Justin McCarthy, Martin insisted that he and his party had not attempted to mislead the public with the inflated figures.

A total of 30,330 new homes were built last year. The figure is 6.7% less than 2023 and just under 10,000 units less than what Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien and Taoiseach Simon Harris promised voters would be completed last year. 

O’Brien told reporters that completion rates would reach up to 40,000 or, at least, the “high thirties” last year.

Martin said that the government had not knowingly given false information on the figures, saying that it was a “genuine belief at the time”. 

The Taoiseach said that a number of private bodies had estimated a rise in completions for the final quarter, which he said had occurred in 2022 and 2023 when housing targets were exceeded.

“It is extremely disappointing that the figures were so low in 2024,” Martin said, while adding that in total over the period in which Housing for All has been in place – the government’s housing plan from 2021 to 2030 – figures have so far exceeded targets.

“It was not in any way a premeditated attempt to mislead anybody. There was a genuine belief that figures would come in strong in the last quarter. That did not materialise. Very disappointed with that.

“We got that wrong, and I acknowledge that, and I regret that,” he said. He refuted the idea that the government had chosen to selectively rely on more optimistic figures provided by the private sector rather than Central Bank or CSO figures.

The inflated figures, he said, was not a core issue with the election campaign. 

“The core issue of the election campaign was who was going to manage the economy properly, but also who had the most credible policy on housing,” Martin continued. He criticised Sinn Féin’s housing policy and said that its programme, as well as the Labour Party’s, “did not persuade people”.

He declined to issue projected housing figures for this year.

However, the Taoiseach said that the key to having more housing completions is more private sector investment. “The government is spending huge amounts of money in housing record levels. The state can’t do it all on its own, and we have to be honest about that, not just this government, but the Oireachtas more generally.”

When asked about rent pressure zones, Martin said that the government is prepared to “examine” change in terms of the rent caps.

“We’ve got time because the rent pressure zones expire at the end of the year, and so we have time in between to say, can we develop an alternative system which protects renters but also enables people to have a clear, stable environment in which to invest.”