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

During the general election campaign, the overwhelming majority of members of the committee committed to try to increase the supply of housing. A large majority of the committee believe that we should do that by increasing the supply of public housing using AHBs and local authorities. If we answer that question in 2021 with the publication of Housing for All and the multi-annual budget, the question that remains for 2022 is whether the public housing system is able to deliver those houses and has the ambition to do so. I am including the Department and AHBs but principally the local authorities.

I refer to urban regeneration and vacant sites. The largest urban regeneration project in Europe at one time was Ballymun. The Department invested more than €1 billion in it. Is it fair to say that all the policy tools are available to Dublin City Council to deliver mixed, public, affordable purchase, affordable rental and social housing on the remaining 25 sites in the Ballymun area?