Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for their contributions. First, I wish to make the point that the area of housing will benefit from the infrastructure, climate and nature fund. We have to learn the lessons from what happened in recent decades, when investment in housing and other areas of critical public infrastructure was cut from peak to trough by approximately 60% because the funding was not there. The principal purpose of this fund is to ensure we can maintain a consistent, high level of public capital investment in to the future, including in housing. That is the first objective of this overall fund that we are setting up.

I believe we are making progress on housing. I went through some of the numbers earlier and I can tell many anecdotes like the Deputy as well. Of course I meet people while canvassing who have a very acute housing need, but I also meet people who have been allocated a social house, been successful with the shared equity scheme or are applying for some of the affordable purchase local authority homes that are currently being built.

Last week, I was at two sites where 115 affordable purchase homes have been built or are about to commence construction. I accept that we need many more and that is why we are using all the levers open to the State. We already went through a number of them such as the direct Exchequer capital and the role of the LDA, which is growing and expanding all the time. There is capacity of up to €5 billion supporting the LDA to deliver approximately 21,000 units on lands in the medium to long term. 5,000 units are to be delivered under Project Tosaigh which delivers units on private land.

I have highlighted what I am doing in relation to funding that is currently within ISIF to support the delivery of further housing as well. We have also supported Home Building Finance Ireland and the Housing Finance Agency in terms of their work as well. The Government is not lacking in commitment when it comes to supporting the delivery of housing. The State can do a lot but it needs the support and co-operation of the private sector. As a country, we need institutional capital as well to be deployed here to help us to build the kinds of homes, at scale, that we need.

When I look at the overall data, I see that in the first quarter of this year there were almost 12,000 new homes commenced. I acknowledge that the development contributions waiver and the suspension of collection fees to Uisce Éireann, and the possible ending of that, resulted in an acceleration of commencements. I am not saying we will get four times that number of commencements across the year but I believe commencements will be up and we will complete, collectively, more homes this year than we did last year. By any yardstick, this Government has restored a major programme of house building in Ireland. For some, it will not go far enough but I believe we are making progress. It is a top priority of the Government to use all of the levers that I have already spoken about. The principal element of this fund here is to maintain a high level of public capital investment in to the future, including in the area of housing.