Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I said ESB connections; I did not say completions. I said when I took over this brief we would stop calling ESB connections completions because they are not completions. However, any ESB connection is a good sign because it shows a new family or an individual will move into that property, whether it is new or has not been occupied for two years. It is a positive indictor. I accept it is not an indicator of a completion.

In regard to construction costs, two pieces of work are under way. One is an international comparator and the other is cradle-to-grave look at the inputs that are there for people who are building and developing. That work is almost completed and we will make a decision based on the findings of those reports. I would point to some schemes I have seen recently, for example, a scheme in Finglas which was a rapid build, the cost of delivery of which was very impressive. It involved a precast form of building which the private sector is now also adopting. When people first talked about rapid builds for social housing, people turned their noses up at it, but the private sector is also moving to adopt that model, because it is an efficient and affordable way to build. We are also looking at ways of using land owned by local authorities to try to leverage affordable homes to buy. For example, I would point to a scheme in Ballymun where the local authority gave the land away for effectively nothing, waived the development levies, organised finance through AIB and we now have 49 new homes for families to live in at very affordable purchasing price points for an area like Ballymun in Dublin.

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