Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Cowen focused on Pillar 1 so I will focus on Pillar 2, and specifically the social housing construction programme. I wish to state that committee members were delighted to get all of the data in the open format and Excel format. They have made it a lot easier to follow what is happening. Is it possible to provide each project with a unique identification number? I make the suggestion because I found it hard to compare the programme data from three months ago with this month's programme. We discovered some differences.

I would like an additional column in the report to show when houses become occupied. The term "partial completion" does not mean anything. It would be useful to have a column that shows how many houses have become occupied and that people are living in as it would give us definite defined data.

The only advice I would give the Minister is that the social housing construction programme is too small. If we realistically want to tackle the housing crisis then we will have to intervene a lot more. What we have been presented with here today is just not enough.

In terms of the Government's construction programme, 75% of the 600 projects are for 20 units or less and 45 of them are for single one house units. We have only two projects for over 100 units and we have one for 100 units. The largest project in the country is for 106 units and it is located in Deputy O'Dowd's constituency of Louth. Fair play to him for getting the largest project to be located in Louth.