James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy McGrath for his questions. On housing output, we had obviously hoped for a much higher output last year. Everybody was disappointed with the final outturn. A lot of effort and record funding had been put in for housing delivery. We did see a significant increase in the number of commencement notices. There is a sense that many developers and builders may have turned their attention to further commencements rather than finalising the projects they were working on at the time. Nonetheless, it was very disappointing, especially for the people who had hoped to have those homes. We are coming off a much lower base this year than we would have expected or hoped for. As a result, we have seen a number of predictions, including the one from the ESRI. Predictions from different bodies have been fairly consistent at a figure in the low 30,000s. It is difficult to disagree with that level of consistency. It would be exceptionally difficult to reach the target set out for this year when we are coming from such a low base. At this stage of the year, we are certainly continuing to drive output as high as we can. That is our aim. That is why we have provided record funding of €6.8 billion for housing delivery this year.

We are currently working on the housing plan and a significant amount of work has gone into it already.

However, it is simple common sense that we cannot finalise or publish the housing plan until the national development plan is finalised. The capital funding granted to the Department of housing and to other Departments, such as funding to the Department of the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, for the grid, etc., will play a crucial role in how we set out our targets and what we aim to do. The Government has made it clear that housing is the number one priority. That will be the case in the national development plan as well. We will be spending record funding of €6.8 billion on housing delivery this year. That figure is to date and I expect there will be further funding on top of that. I cannot say at this point what that funding will be, but we are striving to get the maximum amount of funding we can for direct housing delivery but also for the utility supports around the delivery of housing, such as water, ESB Networks, the grid and road infrastructure.