Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Housing is a national crisis, if not a scandal. I do not want to rain on the parade of the Minister of State and his colleagues after yesterday's announcement, which is the fourth such announcement since October. It seeks to promise the delivery of social housing units and, in the time allocated to me, there is not enough time to go through the dismal record of house construction under this Government. Figures supplied to me in answer to a parliamentary question indicate why the crisis has become a scandal. Waterford has had one unit over the past four years, Offaly received none, north Tipperary received none and there were 60 out of 100 in Dublin last year. It makes dismal reading and I would have thought the Minister would have a more holistic approach to this crisis before now. Even at this late stage, I would have thought the Minister would combine private sector and empowerment initiatives to assist that sector through the use of the strategic investment fund to fund developers, get house building going and address the difficulties, given the lack of houses available, the increasing crisis in mortgage arrears and the construction aspect of providing homes. The Minister made no effort to address those issues when I thought he would.

To deal with the specific issue raised here, it relates to previous Government announcements by the front-line Minister. In particular, capital funding for 7,500 units includes new builds, acquisitions, refurbishments and voids was promised over a period of three years. At a committee meeting a couple of months ago and in responses to parliamentary questions, we were informed that 1,400 would be new builds completed by the end of this year. The announcement yesterday says it will be 1,700 by the end of 2017. Will 300 be built in 2016 and 2017, with 1,400 this year?

On foot of the announcement last yesterday and notwithstanding the difficulties arising from the management of the crisis over the past four years and the fact that it developed into a scandal involving 1,000 children living in emergency accommodation in Dublin, was the Minister and his colleagues convinced that 1,400 units were to be built this year? What has changed in two months leading to the announcement yesterday of 1,700 over three years?

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