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

It is basically the realisable number of homes on a permission granted. If all of those permissions had been built out, we would not be talking about issues with housing supply. I would imagine the number of occasions convertible planning permissions turn into homes that actually meet overall demand in real terms is going to be exceptionally rare. It will not happen in the next number of years, in my view, because of the lack of supply for a ten-year period. It should not be a reason, however, to say - not in theory but in practice - that because we have all these permissions granted that add up to 50,000 homes and our housing supply target was 50,000, we cannot grant any others because we have reached that target, even though we do not know how many of those will be converted into real homes. It is to allow that flexibility and reality in the planning system that, for good applications that come forward on zoned, serviced land that is identified in a development plan, permissions can be granted and cannot be refused solely on the grounds of that target being met in real terms. It has been met on paper as opposed to in reality on the ground. That is what we are talking about.