Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Ministers for being here with us today. We can see from the report outlined and all of the announcements over the last number of months that progress is happening in housing. It is not happening quickly enough. We are all agreed on that. It is happening, however. Driving through my constituency, you can see apartment blocks and housing estates under construction. You can see progress. What we really need to do is accelerate that progress. That is what a lot of today's announcement was about.

I congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, on increasing the funding for grants for refurbishment and vacant homes. I request that he also look at other local authority grants, particularly the disabled person's grant and the housing adaptation grant, which have retained the same cap year on year. Construction inflation has now driven up costs in this area. I ask the Minister of State to take that away with him.