Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I will try to deal with the questions quickly. The inflation group was set up under Sustaining Progress to examine ways to bring down domestically generated inflation. It comprised officials from my Department and the Departments of Finance and Enterprise, Trade and Employment as well as representatives from ICTU and IBEC. Under the Towards 2016 agreement, we reconstituted the group with the same membership and mandate as before. It is further agreed that adherence by employers and trade unionists to the pay terms of the new agreement is important from a counter-inflationary perspective. In all of the previous agreements the pay increases worked out as beneficial to workers and that is the reason workers have overwhelmingly supported the partnership again.

On housing issues, much time was given in the previous programme and this one to housing initiatives. We have increased substantially investment in social and affordable housing and spending in this area in 2006 is four times what it was just a few years ago. The social partnership agreement sets out an ambitious programme to deliver for the next three years, increasing the number of expected starts and acquisitions of social housing by 4,000 units to 27,000 units. The State system of providing land sites continues. Deputy Ó Caoláin raised the issue of the number of houses. If he looks at the figures for houses sold at below market level, he will see that under the Government's 1999 affordable housing scheme of 1999, 94% of all the 2005 sales under that scheme were for homes priced at €185,000 or less. The additional investments and commitments outlined in Towards 2016 testify to the importance we attach to housing affordability. We continue to prioritise effective action to maintain high levels of supply over the period of the programme.

While changes were made to the Part V initiatives, the initiatives are back with the local authorities and the Part V contribution does not constitute a way to buy out their obligation. They must fulfil their obligations under the Act and local authorities are obliged to ensure that each agreement delivers the best possible result in terms of overall housing supply and social integration for their area.

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