Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

I thank all the Members who spoke for their contributions. The Government has set extremely ambitious housing goals which it is delivering. The important point is that we are delivering record levels of housing in general as well as record levels of investment in social and affordable housing.

Today, I listened to some Members who came into the House to complain about the lack of housing in their areas, some of which I found hard to take. Until two or three years ago, many Members served on local authorities and they still have colleagues serving on them. Such Members should tell their colleagues at local level to get things done and to press on at local authority level. I find this attitude particularly rich coming from Members like Deputies Gilmore and Cuffe, who are both from Dún Laoghaire. The local authority in their area has been extremely poor in meeting the needs of the area and I understand it met less than 50% of the commitments to which it agreed in its four year multi-annual programme.

The same applied when listening to Deputies McCormack and Durkan. There have been no cutbacks in County Galway or anywhere else as far as disabled persons grants are concerned. Any changes are due to the locally-performed mix between disabled persons grants and essential repair grants. A total of €70 million is available from the Department and there is plenty of money for any local authority that provides——

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