Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

Dún Laoghaire and the constituency of the Minister, Deputy Gormley, and Deputy Chris Andrews do not have any houses or land. There is a long waiting list for the few affordable houses available. Local authorities are the housing authorities but they cannot perform their function because there is no land on which to build houses. The only way of dealing with that is to consider establishing a housing authority. There is an Affordable Homes Partnership but all it can do, which is causing enormous problems, is approach the owners of large houses who fail to get increased density through a development plan and suggest that they sell their houses for affordable housing, which is a contradiction of the development plan already made by the local authority. We have total confusion.

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