Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 6 December 2017

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council

2:00 pm

Mr. Seamus Coffey:

There is no doubt that that risk has been assessed as being present, because the public capital spending on housing is set up to ramp up significantly. If there was going to be continued reliance on leasing arrangements with private owners, we would not see that increase in public capital spending on housing. As I said, such spending was €350 million in 2015. Next year it will be more than €1.1 billion. That includes funding for local authorities to build, buy and improve houses. There is clearly a recognition that there must not be an over-reliance on private providers of housing, and that we will have-----