Mr. Hugh Brennan:

In response to Deputy Boyd Barrett's point about the percentages, I will stick my colours to the mast. One can say that as close as makes no difference to 30% are either social tenants, HAP or RAS scheme participants or in AHB housing. The next 40% are in that cohort that are earning between €42,000 up to €79,000. We got those data from the Nevin Economic Research Institute and the CSO and they relate to 2016. We suspect that those percentages have grown and that the band itself has grown. We suspect that people earning up to €85,000, especially in Deputy Boyd Barrett's constituency, cannot afford to rent or buy. We also know that only 7% of house sales in 2015 went to that cohort, meaning that 93% went to those earning above that threshold.

I can give the Deputy the exact timeframe for Ballymun. We were notified that we had the site in November 2015. We started building in October 2016 and we have just finished building. The project was traditional brick and block construction of 49 houses. Construction was slower than we would have liked but that was because of finance, phasing and so on. We were brand new to the process but for the next scheme we are probably going to go for rapid build. It takes about a year from getting the site to go through the section 183 process, planning, conveyancing and so on. We hope that our next build will only take 12 months for 30 of the houses and a little longer for the remainder.

I agree with the Deputy's point about income thresholds which also ties into the point made by Deputy Ellis. We will always argue for integrated housing. I do not believe that people should be segregated on the basis of income. Some people say that we are putting down people in social housing by making that argument but we are not doing that. We are arguing for the broader group to whom the Deputy refers. Why not house all of these groups together? We are all effectively social creatures who need to live in houses and we can spread that out. I do not think we are ever going to see it however, unless I am made a Minister for housing, which is very unlikely.