Debate contribution: Programme for Government: Social Homes
Debate contribution by Mr Gordon Lyons on .
- MLA
- Mr Gordon Lyons
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 8 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Programme for Government: Social Homes
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5674007
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Yes. Not only does Sinn Féin have a brass neck but it has no credibility at all when it comes to housing. We have challenges in Northern Ireland. We have priorities, and social housing has been a priority for me. That is why I put the paper to Executive colleagues and said to them, "We have made a commitment to the people of Northern Ireland in the Programme for Government. This is what I need to make sure that we can build social homes. Finance Minister and First Minister, are you prepared to ensure that it gets on to the Executive agenda and gets agreed so that we can put funding not to something new that I am asking for and not to some new programme on which we have not all agreed but to something on which we have had collective Executive agreement to meet a target in the Programme for Government?".
That is what I have asked for, and it has been refused. I understand that things are difficult and budgets are tight, but do not come complaining to me when it is your party's Ministers who have not acted in the way in which they should have done. Everybody knows where the blame lies for that. Everybody knows that Sinn Féin is the party that is blocking this. It has an appalling record when it comes to housing. More will come out on the issue shortly.
239 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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