Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Before I begin, I would also like to take a moment to mark the first anniversary of the death of Private Seán Rooney. One year ago today, Seán was killed in the service of peace in southern Lebanon. His life was one full of courage. It was cut short in the noble pursuit of peace. There is no more noble work than that of the peacekeeper. Everyone in the House will join in expressing solidarity with and sympathy to Seán's mother Natasha, his fiancée Holly, the Rooney and McCloskey families and his colleagues and friends in the Defence Forces who mourn his loss every day.

I also want to take the opportunity, a Cheann Comhairle, to thank you for your very fair-minded and warm chairmanship of proceedings throughout the year. I hope that you will get a well-deserved break. I thank all of the staff in the House of the Oireachtas. Our work would not be possible without them. In particular, I pay tribute to Tom Hickey, the deputy head usher, who has worked here since 2001 and who will retire at the end of the year. I wish him and his wife Lorraine many happy years of happiness in retirement. To all of the staff in Leinster House, including the catering and cleaning staff and everyone who makes everything possible for us, I say that I hope they have a good break and a lovely Christmas.

The Government has been very clear since it came to office that housing is its key priority. By the end of this year, we will have built and completed over 100,000 since coming to office. That is notwithstanding the shutdowns during Covid-19. It is interesting that this morning the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, economic outlook, which Deputy Doherty did not quote for some reason, forecasts 32,400 housing completions in Ireland this year. This is a 10% increase over last year and is the highest figure in 15 years or more. As the Deputy knows, the overall housing target was 29,000. The Deputy also knows that in quarter 4 of last year, 6,000 social homes were listed as completed. These were in addition to what was completed prior to that in the third and fourth quarters. Quoting quarter 3 figures is not an accurate depiction of the reality or of what will transpire at the end of the year.

There is no doubt that the momentum in housebuilding has been significant over the past two years since we have come out of Covid and by every measure, of home permissions, of completions of home purchases, first-time buyers and mortgage drawdowns, we are seeing very positive momentum.

The Minister with responsibility for housing is very confident that it will be a record year not just for the building of social homes but also in the context of their acquisition and delivery. I refer, in particular, to new builds. The number of completions last year for affordable housing was about 1,750. This year, the Minister is confident it will be up to 4,000. The quarter 4 figures will be available in quarter 1 of next year.

It is interesting that prior to Christmas last year, we had similar presentations from Deputy Doherty and his party. When the actual figures were produced, they just glossed over-----

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