Maria McCormack (Sinn Fein)
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I want to talk about Laois and especially the neglect of commuter counties. We take the overspill from the housing crisis. Laois is one of the fastest-growing populations but if the LDA was concentrating on the bigger cities, Laois was really left behind, so there are a couple of issues. The biggest issue is the affordability of the houses. It is like feeding a monster. I bought a house in 2017 for under €200,000. Last year, you would buy that house for €350,000 in Kilminchy. Now they are gone up to €500,000.

As the Minister can imagine, that is just pushing the price up and up. What is going to happen? Where are the plans for the LDA to expand and to look at County Laois? What is the Minister's plan for County Laois? As for the social housing targets, the county council is doing very well, in fairness. However, 1,600 people remain on a waiting list for four years. Where do the targets come from? Are the targets based on the current population in the county? Portlaoise is dealing with a real overspill, being a commuter town, and we cannot keep up with it. That is my first question.

My second question relates to housing and infrastructure not being aligned. This is a massive problem. There was such a boom in the population of the county and the infrastructure cannot keep up with it. An example of that relates to ESB connections. In one case, 80 families who purchased homes in the Hollybrook development in Portlaoise last year were supposed to get into them in January or February of this year. They could not do so, however, because the power station is at capacity. The ESB says it got figures from the Department on housing delivery, but those figures were not enough. We do not have sufficient capacity. Eighty families who have bought houses cannot get into their homes. Some of those people were from Dublin. They enrolled their children in the local primary school and they are going to commute from Dublin to Portlaoise in September because now it looks like it will be December, nearly a year later, when they get into the houses. The houses are just sitting idly and going mouldy, while 80 families are not able to get into them. That is a massive problem. That is my second question. I will let the Minister come back to me because I am talking too much.