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

I do not think anyone in this House doubts the scale of the challenge we face with regard to housing and homelessness. I certainly acknowledge the scale of the challenge that we face. We see some limited progress. The number of people sleeping rough in the past couple of weeks has gone down as a consequence of the additional bedrooms put in by the Minister, Deputy Murphy, before Christmas. The number of families living in bed and breakfast accommodation and hotels is down from the peak. In the last month for which we have records, the number of families in emergency accommodation is down, but that may well just be a seasonal blip and I would not read too much into it at this stage. It indicates some progress in some areas.

We should not forget where we are coming from with regard to the crisis we face with housing. We had a seven-year period after a severe economic crisis during which very few homes were built at all. The banks were bust, the construction industry collapsed and the Government was not in a position to build new housing because of the fiscal crisis. In that period, however, the population continued to grow and many new households were formed. We are now playing catch-up and we are catching up. The amount of social housing built by local authorities is being ramped up. There were only 657 direct builds in 2016 and there were 2,045 last year.

The number of social homes built directly by the councils and approved housing bodies has trebled and we are also seeing an increased uptake in construction in the private housing sector. It will take some time before things stabilise and further time before we get on top of things.

In regard to cutbacks in Dublin City Council and the Deputy's reference to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, as best as I can recall, Dublin City Council is controlled not by Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael but by a coalition of left-wing groups which have the ability to vary local property tax and commercial rates. Any decision to cut back staffing in the local authority could have been mitigated by decisions taken by the left-wing councillors on the city council, but they chose not to do so.

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