James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy McGrath for his questions. The Department of housing is now spending approximately 30% of all capital funding, which is close to about €1 in every €3 of all capital funding that has been made available by the Government. Obviously, there is only a certain amount of funding and this has to be split between schools, hospitals, transport and other important areas. The Deputy is certainly right in that I am treating this as a housing emergency. The total Exchequer funding being made available for the delivery of the housing programme is more than €5.5 billion, comprising €3.9 billion in capital funding and €1.65 billion in current funding. The capital funding provision of €3.9 billion is being supplemented by Land Development Agency investment of €1.25 billion and Housing Finance Agency lending of a further €1.65 billion, resulting in overall capital provision of €6.8 billion. As I said, in 2025, more than 28,000 additional households will have their housing needs met through social and affordable housing.

Substantial funding is being made available for housing. I am certainly treating it as an emergency. We are raising funding as quickly as we can. Any application that comes in does require consideration as to whether it meets the needs of what we are looking for in terms of its location and how it is being financed, whether it is viable and how quickly it can be delivered. We invite applications, so the mere application via a body seeking funding does not guarantee it funding. We do have to live within our budget at the same time. As I said, we are providing record funding towards housing delivery.