Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On the final point, I have raised this in the Dáil and with officials over the past couple of years. In the context of asking local authorities about housing developments, does the Minister know the nature of the question asked? I have been told by local authority sources - I have not seen the letters so I should obtain them through a freedom of information request - that the Department asked how many developments with more than 100 houses were taking place. Was that the question, or something along those lines? It certainly would not be relevant. There are many developments with smaller numbers of houses. That is the word coming back to me. There was certainly a lot of discussion among councillors in Meath on that particular point.

We acknowledge that the Minister and his officials spend every penny. It always happens with this particular budget. The truth, however, is that land costs will potentially eat up a considerable amount of the budget because they are rising all the time, as are construction costs. Has the Minister told his colleagues in the Cabinet, including the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, that he just does not have enough money and that, while he is spending every penny he has, the system will not be able to cope and is really falling back. Has he asked for more money to deal with this? It does not look like the Minister has done this. The capital budget is greater than it was a few years ago but it is in the same ballpark. The figures look similar. I acknowledge there is an increase but it has been eaten up.

I am absolutely shocked about the position on prefabs. The former Minister, Ruairí Quinn, famously had an official prefab replacement programme but so did other previous Ministers, Mary Coughlan and Batt O'Keeffe, although theirs was more under the radar. The latter two individuals replaced a lot of prefabs also. It is shocking that another prefab replacement programme must start because the number of prefabs has shot up dramatically.