Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for recognising the work that is under way in our well-being framework. It is laid out in the summer economic statement where we go through the different pillars that we have, as the Deputy will be aware, of looking at how we are doing under important areas that influence quality of life and well-being and then we evaluate our performance over a five-year period. For what it is worth, I increasingly think when we are thinking about the performance of an economy that where you are with life expectancy and educational attainment are every bit as important measures of economic development as where you are with the GDP and other measures that we would look at a lot more, and that is parking and leaving aside entirely their intrinsic social value.

To deal with what impact they have, for example, the issues in relation to biodiversity are issues that have been raised in the past with the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, and will be raised with me when Deputies are reaching agreement about the amount of funding that is available for the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The additional funding that the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, has received for his areas are directly driven not only by the case that he makes, but also by the recognition of the Government of how important biodiversity is in our well-being and in the natural environment.

The issue the Deputy raised there in relation to equality of access to housing and all the fairness issues that are there, it is a recognition of those issues that is driving our public and social housing building programme, which, I believe, will show even more visible signs of progress all over the country in the next year. It is a direct factor as well in the funding the Government has made available to the Land Development Agency to deliver our cost-rental programme. These issues influence discussions that happen in government. I hope we can build even more on the well-being framework that we have here in the time ahead.