Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To be very clear to the House, what I have outlined here is State land, that the State owns and that we will use to deliver social and affordable housing as well as allowing for private housing in order that we get a combination of houses and provide housing for all the different needs of people, be they key workers, people on the social housing waiting list or others. That is how we will increase the supply of housing. We will only tackle the housing crisis by increasing the supply of housing.

The Deputy listed people whom he said were experts on housing. They might understand homelessness, but they are not experts on housing, no more than any of us are. All of us put together have the right solutions. We are on the same page because we all want to deliver 10,000 social houses a year. I understand, and the Deputy might not understand, that it takes a little bit of time to get there. We cannot just say we want it tomorrow and have it. We have to put in place a plan, allocate the money and make it happen. That is what we are doing, and we will use State land to do it.

In the short term, we are rebuilding our housing stock and, trust me, the Government and I are committed to making local authorities central to delivering local authority housing. That is what they are doing. They were stopped by other parties, not by Fine Gael, the Labour Party or Independents, but a different party which is not in government now. We are putting the capacity back in the system to do that. Deputy Wallace and I agree on that much, but I disagree with him because the NAMA sites are not State lands.

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