Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)

I have a brief question. I am trying to keep it as concise as possible. It follows on from Deputy Ó Broin’s question. The issue we face is we need an additional 15,000-plus homes built per year. The capital figure mentioned is €7 billion. Would it not be more economically and socially beneficial that the 15,000 was affordable housing, particularly affordable purchase, in terms of meeting need and demand? Second, if the State has €6 billion-plus surplus available to it, why do we just not allocate that surplus to build 15,000 affordable homes? Can that not be guaranteed, rather than trying to think of all these ways we can incentivise the private market? We have the finance. Why do we not do it?