Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The statistics bear out my contention that the Government is putting all its eggs, or at least 75% of them, into the one basket of approved housing bodies for delivering units to those on the ground. I accept that many people who are waiting on housing and who want to see progress on this matter do not care where the houses come from as long as they get one and as long as there is potential for hope. In the event of the Department's statistics indicating that this is on-balance sheet, has the Minister the funds available to meet the shortfall in terms of what he can provide? This shortfall will obviously become apparent at this point. The mantra put forward by the Minister and his colleagues is that money is not an object. It is certainly not an object when it comes to his commitment at this stage because it has taken between two to three years to get from inception to delivery. If this were happening at a greater pace, which I hope it will, can the Minister confirm that there is funding available to meet the shortfall so that local authorities can take up the mantle that the Minister says he wants them to? The Minister says that he wants the local authorities to be at the forefront of this but, based on the statistics, which do not lie, they are not there at the moment.

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