Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)

I do not envisage that there will be any cutbacks. If one considers the allocation for this year, while we are investing €1.7 billion, an increase of 16% on the 2006 figure, the HFA and other agencies will also invest €800 million. As a result, the total spend in the social housing market will be €2.5 billion.

On our achievements to date, in 2006 the total figure for house completions was 93,000. Of these, some 6,361 were in the social housing sector. In 2007, even though the market was constrained to some degree, there were still 7,400 completions. In the area of affordable housing, the number of completions was 3,600. We believe we attained our target of 9,000 social housing completions at the end of 2007.

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