Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the Deputy's second point, the Government will do what we can to speed up the delivery of the national broadband plan. The Deputy and I were involved in that decision in the previous Government and time has proven it to have been the correct decision. I understand that the difficulty in speeding it up is related not to funding or even to the contract but rather to the impact of the public health restrictions and the fact that they have not allowed the work needed for this project to go ahead. I hope our exiting public health restrictions will allow that work to accelerate.

On the question regarding the help to buy scheme and whether it should be made available to existing properties, there are inflationary challenges and risks with such schemes. The way in which we have prevented those risks developing is by making the scheme contingent purely on the building and completion of a new home. We have tried to make that policy focus as much as possible on the delivery of additional supply. My concern is that if we were to focus such schemes on existing housing stock, although I think the Deputy is suggesting buildings that might require work in order for them to be liveable, it would not have as great an impact on the release and creation of new homes. It would mean doing work on structures that exist or even on existing homes, and I do not believe that is the route this scheme should go down.

On the other hand, the Ministers, Deputies Humphreys and Darragh O'Brien, through the rural regeneration and development fund, have been making grants available to towns and villages throughout the country to put in place plans that allow homes to be delivered in towns and villages. I think that is the way we should do it and I understand it is the way we are doing it, namely, by servicing land and sites in the centre of towns to allow homes to be either completed or delivered there. That is the best way of delivering the priority the Deputy outlined, which I share.