Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have to forgive Deputy Boyd Barrett because he was not present for the entire debate on this Bill and the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Affordable Housing Bill. However, I am not sure what part of those two Bills he does not understand. The core direction of both is to ensure there is a legislative basis for significant delivery of public housing by the State on land that we own.

The Minister in the Dáil has said that in places like Dublin, 100% of the units will be social and affordable. The use of open market sales to subsidise or reduce housing investment on the site is therefore not Government policy. The Minister has said that very clearly in the course of this debate. This Bill allows the LDA to establish DAC subsidiaries to deliver affordable housing and public housing. The Affordable Housing Bill allows for council-led affordable housing on council land. As late as this morning the Secretary General of the Department confirmed that the €500 million we spend on HAP needs to be phased out because it is better value for money for us to spend capital money on the delivery of housing. In many ways all the last few contributions re-fight an argument that was settled in the general election. The State is back in the business of building houses, we are going to do it on a massive scale, and the Housing for All programme we will see in the summer will, I believe, do exactly what the ESRI wants us to do, which is to increase significantly the capital spending on this. I really welcome the ESRI's report this morning. It is really important and I think it will allow for the aggressive delivery of the legislation that Opposition parties are opposing.