Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

That is rubbish. The Minister of State knows as well as I do that a planning permission has a five-year life. Any planning permissions developers got before this Act was published in 1999 have expired. Anybody who had a 1999 planning permission would have to get new planning permission. Therefore, what the Minister of State has said is rubbish. The Act should now be fully operational. The problem is that the Government, which has been in office for almost ten years, promised the people, including all the young people trying to get houses, that a social and affordable housing scheme would deliver 20% of the private housing development.

The figures the Minister of State gave us, the 1,837 affordable and 950 social units, have made up less than 1% of the total private housing output of the country since the Act came into effect. No matter how he spins it or what excuses the Minister of State offers, this is a monumental failure on the part of Government and an absolute betrayal of all the people who are trying to provide a roof over their heads while mortgage rates are rising and after ten years of rising house prices.

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