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

Deputy Adams took most of last week off to travel to the United States to raise funds from very wealthy Americans, which is something we will come back to at another stage.

The Deputy's contention is, of course, incorrect. All of the problems that we inherited from Fianna Fáil do not still remain. Unemployment, for example, is down from 15% to 6% and falling. The public finances are now in a much more stable position and our national sovereignty is restored. There are of course new and other problems, such as Brexit, which the Deputy mentioned, and of course the housing crisis. We will deal with these problems as soon as we can and will put the maximum effort behind all of those. I can guarantee we are doing exactly that.

As I mentioned already in my response to Deputy Martin, we are absolutely committed to increasing the provision of social housing in this State. Some 2,000 new homes will be built directly by local authorities and approved housing bodies this year, rising to just under 4,000 next year. We have invested in the local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, providing funds to local authorities to provide services to land, roads, utilities and so on, to enable those lands be released for housing and affordable housing. We have increased the vacant site levy to punish land hoarders, so that land is brought into use. In the Finance Bill 2017, yesterday, we brought in an examination of whether we should tax vacant homes. It is difficult to know whether we can do that because the numbers for vacant homes are unreliable. We have changed the planning regulations to fast track planning making it much easier for builders to go for bigger developments and as well as that there are the building regulations which are being changed to reduce the cost of building housing. Across Government there is an enormous commitment to getting to grips with the housing crisis.

There is also a factual realisation and understanding that this is not a problem that will be solved easily or overnight. From a point where almost no houses were built in the country for a number of years, we have to a point where thousands rather than hundreds are being constructed. Next year, there will be tens of thousands. Against a backdrop of a rising population and increasing household formation, however, it will take time for us to get on top of the problem. This does not in any way diminish our determination to do so.

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