Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is, but that is for the national children's hospital, not the national maternity hospital. Deputies will know that while we have extended and renovated a lot of hospitals, no new hospital has been built from scratch since 1997. Next year I anticipate that we will have at least three new hospitals under construction - the national children's hospital, the new mental health and forensic hospital and the national maternity hospital. Perhaps we might build even more after that.

My principled view is that social housing should be built by local authorities and approved housing bodies, not by NAMA. Local authorities are in place to build social housing and they are now getting back into that business. Approved housing bodies have been doing it for quite some time. They are the best vehicles to build social housing. What I said in my speech in Clonmel was that we were examining the role of NAMA with a view to giving it a new role in the provision of housing.

NAMA will soon complete the job it was asked to do. It will be able to repay all of the senior debt over the coming months.

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