Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

It covers people who are single, people with families and people in a variety of existing accommodation. We need to ensure a range of responses that reflects these different needs and their relative priority. The Government's housing programme has been designed to respond to the full range of housing needs. To further tackle this issue, I recently asked local authorities to put in place five-year action plans covering the full range of their housing programmes. These plans will ensure that a full strategic approach is taken by local authorities and will ensure that they avail of the certainty provided by multi-annual expenditure programmes.

The Green Party accuses me of failing to implement a national spatial strategy, yet I am the first Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government ever to have brought forward such a strategy.

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