Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister is aware, this is something I have had a particular interest in. I note the Minister mentions the increase in the number of places from 13,000 to 16,000. Does he think he will have the capacity to deal with that? We know it has been impossible to deal with the capacity up to now. On that, the Minister mentioned how just over 3,300 people are waiting. Can he specifically clarify what exactly that figure relates to? That is really important. Obviously, we need people to be trained in order that we can build the houses we clearly require.

I also wish to raise a point of information on the number of people who are coming back into the country compared with the number of people leaving the country. I had a look at this because it had been previously raised with me by Fine Gael. According to the CSO, in the 12-month period prior to April 2023, 30,500 Irish citizens left the country and 29,600 returned. That is important to note for the Dáil record.

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