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

The split is approximately 50:50 in terms of the council list-plus. This point is important because it is not common practice for all local authorities to present their elected members with a gross and net need. Having a gross need figure is a really useful tool. When the Housing Agency publishes its summary of housing needs assessments, which it will do again later this year, it only gives us the net need, that is, the number of people who are on housing lists. From the point of view of planning and targeting, particularly when the private rental sector is shrinking, it is helpful to know what the gross need is, which would include people in receipt of HAP and RAS. Some local authorities even include their transfer lists in their gross need. It is a very useful tool.

My second question goes back to targets and whether or not they have been missed. I fully understand that every project is different and there are things that are out of people's control. I am interested to know what happens when targets are missed. Under the previous Government's plan, targets were missed for a variety of reasons in 2020 and 2021 and the missed units seem just to have dropped off the picture. When Ms Philbin was answering the questions from Deputy Higgins, she seemed to suggest that if Galway City Council was not going to meet either the Department's figure or its own target for a given year, the expectation is that the council would try to roll that shortfall in and meet it by the end of the five years. Is it the case that under the previous Government's plan, missed targets were just missed targets? Is there a requirement or request now from the Department that if a target is missed in one year or another, the expectation for social housing is that the overall target over the five years will be met? I am interested in hearing from the representatives of both councils on that. When we asked people from the Department about it recently, they were not sure of the answer.