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

What we need to do now is ramp it all up again from a very low base. That includes both a significant increase in social housing and a significant increase in houses being built by the private sector. We estimate that the number of new homes built in Ireland next year will be between 20,000 and 25,000, which is a very big increase on this and the previous year. It is going to take time, however, to get on top of this because we cannot ramp up housing construction overnight. We had a construction industry that was decimated, a banking sector that collapsed and a Government which, for years, did not have money to invest in social housing. That is now changing and 2,000 new homes will be built directly by local authorities this year while others will be provided in other ways. It is going to take time to get on top of this and, of course, we are doing it against the backdrop of a growing population and an increasing rate of household formation.

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