Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Some have been quicker out of the blocks than others. They are our colleagues and we need to encourage them. They are mandated through the Housing for All plan to deliver. One thing we have done is we have made and published our housing plan for each local authority. The housing need and demand assessments, HNDAs, are there. People can see the plan. It covers local authorities and AHBs within that sector. To be fair to local authorities, this is new to some of them. Some local authorities have not done it before and others have not done it in years. Counties Waterford and Cork have moved very well on affordable purchase. Fingal is moving on it. I would like to see other local authorities do so. County Kildare is also doing well.

We are scaling it up. I absolutely get that 1,800 homes was below the target of 4,100 affordable homes but I will stand over the policy by saying that there was a good footprint established. The year before, there had been 65. If you go back 14 years, there were zero in each of those years. It is about building up capacity and scale. I meet the chief executives of local authorities all of the time. I have housing summits with the housing directors regularly. We work with them and get their feedback as to what else they need to enable them to do these things. Sometimes that is land, which was mentioned earlier on. We now have the land fund in place and will buy the land for them.