Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Let me try to deal with a number of those questions. I refer to some of Deputy Boyd Barrett's comments. In mixed tenure development on public land we are trying to enure that we are building communities that have a mix of social, affordable rental and rented or owned private units. We are trying to ensure that the advantages of diversity and mixed tenure benefit those communities in the medium term, as opposed to doing what we did in the past where large areas of cities were all private or social housing. That does not maximise opportunities for many people, and it creates division across different societal types within Dublin. That is not good.

If we are going to add between 30% and 40% to our social housing stock over the next five or six years, which we are doing by adding an extra 47,000 units to it, then I want to make sure that, where possible, we are integrating those social housing units within mixed tenure developments that have social, affordable, private and other variables of housing mixes. That is what we are doing in O'Devaney Gardens, I hope, and will also be doing with some of the other regeneration projects that we will fund in the city and other parts of the country, and that is a good thing. Some people may have an ideological difference of opinion, which is fine and I respect that view but I do not agree with it.