Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister is coming to the end of his third year in office. On the basis of the data we have, for him to suggest he is making progress is genuinely delusional. Since he has been Minister, house prices have increased by over 20% and are higher now than they have ever been in modern times. Rents have increased by 23% and are still rising. Again, they are the highest they have been in the history of the State. Homelessness, on the Minister's watch, has increased by 40%. There has bee a 56% increase in child homelessness since the Minister took office.

I am looking at the statistics dashboard on the Department's website and I identify two worrying developments. Since the middle of last year, both planning permissions and commencements have been on a downward trajectory. We do not know where they will go in the months ahead but the signs are not positive.

Probably the most disappointing thing is that since the Minister assumed his role, he has failed to meet the very modest targets he set for social and affordable housing delivery three years in a row. Not only was his failure on social housing targets last year pretty poor, with targets across social housing supports missed by 25% and for new builds by 17%, but his affordable housing delivery last year, which had some of his lowest targets, was almost 60% below what he promised. That means, for example, he did not deliver 8,500 social homes he was meant to over three years. There are 7,500 households in emergency accommodation and one does not need to be a mathematician to understand the significance of that.

Last year, the Minister delivered only 323 affordable purchase homes under the affordable purchase fund. As he will know, many of those were not even purchased last year, including those in his constituency. Approved housing bodies are way behind on cost rental, with only 520 units delivered. The Minister promised that the LDA would deliver 1,000 such homes last year but it delivered 164. I do not know what the Minister's definition of "turning a corner" or "progress" is, but none of that suggests this plan is delivering.

I want to question the Minister about what he has announced today. There is a press release on the Department's website announcing €1 billion of expenditure over three years. There are 17 sentences explaining how that money is to be spent. There is literally no detail about the use of what is a very significant amount of taxpayers' money. I have specific questions and I am hoping the Minister will do me the favour of sticking to them in his response. Will the €750 million for the cost-rental subsidy scheme be equity or will it be grant aid? Has the Government secured approval from the European Commission that the scheme does not breach state aid rules?