Jack Chambers accused of burying housing report before last year's general election 

Jack Chambers has been accused of burying a report released ahead of the general election which stated the Government would not deliver 40,000 homes.Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty said that the then-finance minister was given a report from his dedicated housing unit ahead of the election that advised him on all matters related to the government's housing plan.Mr Chambers, who is now minister for public expenditure, has rejected the assertions made by Mr Doherty."The report made it clear 40,000 homes would not be delivered, and that they [the Government] wouldn't even get close to that figure," said Mr Doherty.“Two days later, with the election campaign underway, he made the claim that the Government was on course to deliver 40,000 homes. Scroll for results in your area “This was repeated again and again by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs throughout the election campaign."The submission was sent for review to Mr Chambers on November 6 and was noted by the minister.The Donegal TD said Mr Chambers had made a conscious decision to mislead the public on one of the key issues of the election campaign.A spokesperson for Mr Chambers said the minister for finance receives a monthly housing update and the November 2024 submission referenced CSO data from October and previous Central Bank projections.The overall assessment detailed in the report states: "The figures to-date are broadly in line with recent revisions to completions forecasts from the Central Bank for 2024, which point to housing output similar to, or slightly lower, than last year".The spokesperson for Mr Chambers said that this information was not new."The CSO data had been published two weeks earlier and was debated in the Dáil on the day of publication," the spokesperson said.They added: "There were many different bodies and agencies giving varied projections on housing numbers at the time which were in the public domain".Mr Doherty said the report stated the Government would deliver the same number of homes as the previous year, or less.The line that the Government would deliver 40,000 homes was repeated "ad nauseam" by Micheál Martin, Simon Harris and Darragh O'Brien, he said."These records completely debunk any claim this was an honest mistake on the part of the Minister," said Mr Doherty.“It was pure populism. Telling the public what they wanted to hear, knowing it wasn’t true."It would not be common for the minister to relay these monthly updates to the Taoiseach and Tánaiste, Mr Chambers spokesperson said, and this report did not contain new information to raise with the coalition leaders.

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