Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That answer is of concern. We need to get clarification on that because housing is crucial. It is important for the witnesses to have their meeting with the Minister for Finance. It is also important that this committee has more meetings with them. Sometimes we would not be aware of what is going on and how serious this is now. We will have a budget in October with the competing demands of the children's hospital and national broadband plan. Where will the money go? We have 31 local authorities and we need to build more houses more quickly. It is suggested that €1 billion could be spent on housing assistance payment, HAP, this year, which is a phenomenal amount when houses could be built on which we would not be paying rent.