Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Every single measure has been opposed by the Social Democrats. I have a lot of regard for Deputy O'Callaghan. If the motion he tabled is the first effort at Social Democrat housing policy and this is apparently the alternative to the most comprehensive housing plan brought forward by any government - it is the single biggest intervention by any government in the history of the State - it is a very poor alternative. Last year, we were able to deliver nearly 10,500 new social homes, more new-build social homes than have been done in 50 years. Deputy Shortall quoted Central Bank projections for the end of the year. We are confident we will exceed our target this year, which may disappoint the Deputy. We will build more social homes this year - 2023 - than we built last year and we will deliver more affordable homes this year than last year. We will exceed the target we set ourselves this year. The Central Bank also projected last year that we would not hit the target, which we exceeded by more than 5,000. We will wait and see until early in the first quarter of next year. If Deputy Shortall looks at the commencement and completion figures up to the end of quarter 2 this year, even the August commencements, which I gave out earlier in the House, they are 31% up on the same month last year, she may again be disappointed but all the projections are going in the right direction.

The one area in which they are not is homelessness. I am acutely aware of my responsibility in this area for those who do not have a home to call their own. That has been increasing. At the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, I, along with Deputies O'Callaghan and Ó Broin and other members of the committee, discussed the progress of the purchase of homes with tenantin situ. It has been very successful; the cost-rental tenant in situscheme is moving forward. We will spend about €300 million this year on purchasing homes and securing private tenancies as public tenancies and social homes, bringing them into social housing stock. Those are in addition to the other measures I mentioned around affordable housing, like the 42 schemes we approved across the country in 18 local authorities, including Oscar Traynor Road. Deputy Shortall's record on Oscar Traynor is there for everyone to see, as to why that scheme has been delayed for years and years. We are getting on and delivering cost rental and affordable homes for people, like in Ballymastone in north County Dublin, with 1,200 homes. I use that as an example because the Social Democrats also opposed that development on the ground.

We will do everything we humanly can to increase supply across all tenures and see a reversal in that trend in increasing numbers of homelessness.

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