Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Durkan for his questions. I will comment on what he said with regard to housing. I agree with every word he has said regarding the impact not having enough homes available for society has on families and on individuals who are looking to buy a home or are worried they might not be able to afford the rent or might not have rental accommodation in the future. I am as aware as the Deputy is of what that means to those who are affected by this kind of deep anxiety and concern about their future.

If one looks at where we are in the second half of this year, there are some important and positive signals regarding housing output. At the half-point of the year, building has started on almost 13,000 homes. We believe the momentum for the second half of the year will be stronger. The Government is confident that we will meet or exceed our target of 29,000 homes for the year. If we look beyond this year, planning permissions granted in the first quarter of this year were 40% higher than in the same quarter a year ago. I know we have a journey ahead of us to meet the needs Deputy Durkan described but these figures are better than they have been for many years in the economy. In the context of this being only the second year since the construction sector was shut for most of the pandemic, these are strong figures on which the Government will build in the time ahead.

I will conclude with my next point as I know my time is nearly up. On expenditure and the level of support available, the overall budget for housing in 2023 stands at €4.07 billion. This is a massive increase since the Government was formed in 2020. If that is taken as the benchmark, the increase has been over €1.5 billion.

We are also seeing the Land Development Agency begin to fulfil its potential. All of those figures, combined with local authorities getting a social housing programme well under way across the country, will mean the output this year in homes built and citizens moving into them will be more positive than it has been for some time. We want to build on that. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael McGrath, and I know we need to do more and better and we will.