Jack Chambers Accused of Withholding Housing Data That Could Have Swayed Election

Minister Jack Chambers is facing serious accusations after Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty claimed that he “deliberately deceived” the public during the election campaign by withholding key housing data. According to Doherty, had the true numbers on new-home builds been made public, it could have changed the outcome of the election.

A spokesperson for Chambers, who now holds the position of public expenditure minister, has rejected these claims. The accusations stem from the government’s assertion during the election campaign that nearly 40,000 new homes would be built in 2024, a figure that many believed was unrealistic. In reality, the Housing for All plan set a target of 33,450 new builds, but only 30,330 homes were completed, a 6.7% drop from 2023, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), reported Belfast Telegraph.

Doherty, speaking on the Leinster House plinth on Thursday, highlighted a report from the Department of Finance’s Budget & Economics Division, which he said showed the government had intentionally misled the Irish public. The report, which Chambers had received before the Dáil was dissolved on November 8, indicated that 21,634 new homes had been completed in the first nine months of the year, a 3.1% decline compared to 2023.

The report also made it clear that meeting the 40,000 new-build target was unlikely. Doherty questioned why Minister Chambers did not disclose this information publicly, especially when he was aware that the predictions were for fewer houses, or at best the same number, to be built compared to the previous year.

“If you have a report that comes out on the eve of the election, and the minister has to stand up and say ‘The officials in my department are of the same view as the Central Bank, and we’re likely to deliver less houses this year than we did last year’, then of course that’s going to change the outcome of the election,” Doherty said.

A spokesperson for Minister Chambers defended him, saying the information in the November 2024 submission was already in the public domain, as the CSO data had been published earlier in October and debated in the Dáil. The spokesperson also emphasized that Chambers had been aware of these figures and projections.

Chambers acknowledged that housing output was not meeting targets and recognized the need to increase private sector investment in housing, particularly in apartment construction. He noted that the state is currently the biggest player in the housing market but stressed that the cost of finance for building is too high, requiring more support from commercial banks to ensure affordable housing construction.

Despite the back-and-forth, the question remains: was there a deliberate attempt to hide the reality of the housing situation, and how will this impact the government’s future plans?