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

It is not necessarily shared ownership, it is also affordable housing estates. In principle, I do not disagree with Deputy Ellis that we need to look at an affordable housing model. How we provide accommodation in places like Dublin city centre for people to be able to work and live in close proximity is key. I have an open mind on whether that is through affordable rental, through increasing supply to try to bring prices down, or through some form of affordable purchase scheme in the future.

All the pressure on me to date has been finding social housing for the 91,000 people on housing lists, how are we going to deal with the needs of families that are homeless or under threat of becoming homeless, people who are being squeezed out of the private rental market, people who are living with relatives and so on. Most of those people are not able to buy at the moment. We need to focus our resources on trying to get social housing provision increased.