Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)

I would also challenge a claim of 1,100 houses because, according to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government's housing statistics bulletin, a mere 616 of the 43,899 new units completed in the first six months of 2006 comprised social or affordable housing. While I am aware that some of the new units were one-off houses or in developments of fewer than four units, affordable houses formed less than 1.5% of the total number of house completions, rather than 20%. Can the Minister of State indicate how many of the units completed in the first six months of this year were in developments of four or more houses, so that we can establish the number of affordable and social housing being lost due to changes in the Government's policy wrought by the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2002? We have already debated this issue in the context of a Private Members' Bill which was opposed by the Minister of State, and it is clear that the policy is not working.

See this speech in context