I want to make progress and comprehensively address the trauma of families with children being relocated in hotels.

Deputy Doherty spoke about the human face of homelessness and Deputy Boyd Barrett referred to the human face of a case he had dealt with. I have met families in similar circumstances and seen the anguish this has caused. I have also heard the human stories but I am also aware of the prospects offered to people when new social accommodation is opened, for example, on the North Strand. I am aware of the response of local communities to the opening of new sheltered housing units in Broombridge Lodge, Cabra. I have experienced the response of people to the progress we are trying to make in O'Devanny Gardens, which includes social housing.

Alongside the human anguish to which Deputies referred and which I have also witnessed first-hand, I have seen the human consequences of housing solutions. During my tenure as a member of Cabinet, we have delivered 80 housing solutions on each working day thus far in 2017 and we are aiming to increase this figure to 100. I have provided funding to deliver our social housing targets, including the delivery by local authorities of more than 2,000 new homes, the acquisition of 1,250 homes, the delivery of 380 units through Part V acquisitions and the return to use of 1,400 vacant social homes. This is being done as a result of the Government's commitment to address the housing issue and my commitment, as Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, to make the best possible contribution to doing so.

In 2018, more than 3,800 social housing units will be built directly by the State and a further 4,100 social housing units will be delivered through vacant homes, acquisitions and long-term leasing arrangements. This is part of the Government's response to the housing issue must be viewed in the context of our expectation that general housing completions will reach 24,000 next year versus 19,000 in 2017.

These measures are being delivered through Government and market action to increase housing supply and respond to many different challenges, including the crises to which a number of Deputies referred. Deputy Boyd Barrett spoke of some of the difficulties we are experiencing and the scale of the challenges we face. He indicated he did not know the answers to some of these problems. This is because we need to interrogate some of the figures further. In some cases we do not have figures and we need to fix that. The Deputy know this but his assessment is that we should proceed with the tax and make a principled commitment to introducing it, as is his right. As Minister for Finance, however, I cannot make such a commitment until I know how much we will tax, what will be the scope of the tax and what derogations and exemptions we would need to introduce. If we were to introduce such a tax without first addressing these issues, the Deputy would lambaste me and accuse of incompetence for not addressing them in advance. That is how this would play out. Introducing a tax without doing the necessary preliminary work would have consequences and I would face questions from the Deputies asking me to explain my failure to act competently, in the same way as I had to deal with issues in the previous Dáil concerning the implementation of the local property tax. Deputy Doherty raised issues with me at that time on the local property tax, which it is Sinn Féin policy to abolish. Before making such a commitment in principle, I must first ensure certain policy matters are resolved. A significant amount of work is being done in parallel at local authority level to convert vacant properties to use.

I cannot accept the amendment for the reasons I have set out. However, I will introduce an amendment on Report Stage to rectify and address the different policy issues the Deputies have raised, for example, the issue of data collection which I genuinely need to address. It is only when I have dealt with these matters that I will be in a position to evaluate whether this tax can be introduced. As I stated, without doing such work, I will have to deal with the consequences of my failure to do address these issues before the tax was implemented. Members of the Opposition would raise these consequences with me. While I cannot accept the amendment, I will table an amendment on Report Stage outlining how the collection of data and policy matters will be crystallised.