Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

What we want here is for the housing strategy to talk about the existing and likely need for future housing, including houses, duplexes and apartments, including for purchase by intending owner-occupiers. We want the housing strategy to explicitly cover that. If it is hidden in the definitions, we have every chance that, when we get the housing strategies from different areas, they will not put in proper targets for apartments and people having the ability to buy. If councillors go to challenge that, they could well be sitting in a council chamber and be told that the housing strategy in subsection (5)(f) says "in particular houses and duplexes". They may not know to look up the definitions and so on. Having things be implicit or explicit matters. The wording here, "in particular houses or duplexes", excludes apartments in an explicit sense. It should be explicit, not hidden. Why have it hidden? What is the advantage of doing that? There are many different housing types in the country, but there are three main housing types. There are houses, duplexes and apartments. Listing two of them but not the third is problematic.