Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

By way of a brief follow-up point, I wish to draw out the main implications of the points made by Mr. O'Connor and by Dr. Roantree and Dr. O'Toole from the ESRI. I agree fully that we need to move to a public housing stock of between 20% and 30% to meet the structural demand within the social and affordable housing need. Nevertheless, if the State has a commitment under the national development plan, NDP, to add between 25,000 and 30,000 new units to the overall housing stock annually, we are faced with a far greater proportion being non-market housing, that, is public housing, than envisaged under Rebuilding Ireland or in the general targets in the NDP post-2021.

Mr. O'Connor might be better able to answer my question better than the ESRI. What percentage of the figure of between 25,000 and 30,000 units should be public housing? By a rough calculation, it will probably be approximately 50%, or between 14,000 and 15,000 annually, in the public housing system to try to absorb that need, even over the course of a decade. Is there a need for the Housing Agency, the ESRI and the National Economic and Social Council to try to work out in an empirically robust way the percentages of new households in the system every year that are falling into the categories we are discussing? It is all very well saying it is 30% of existing renters, but that does not tell us about the percentage who are entering the rental market. One of the most important things we could learn from the discussion is how many units we will need over a decade and what percentage it is of the NDP target. I do not mean to put words into Dr. Roantree's or Dr. O'Toole's mouth, but is it correct that they both believe the Rebuilding Ireland and NDP targets do not come close to meeting the level of need the ESRI's research and Mr. Moore's experience predict?