Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is absolutely correct. The call to acquire fewer homes by local authorities was my call because I did not want them competing with young families in the market in high-demand areas. Where it still makes financial sense to do it and it is not a high-demand area, local authorities can still make acquisitions and that is why this year, in the region of 900 more homes will be acquired into the social housing stock, the permanent stock, under Rebuilding Ireland.

The Oireachtas joint committee referred to 50,000 new homes and therefore it always presupposed a reliance on the private sector for another type of solution for people who needed social housing support. It always presumed that. It always presumed an over-reliance on the private sector under the programme of those 50,000 homes being brought into the social housing stock. The actual output figures for 2017 - I am only talking about local authority build, housing body build and Part V build - show that 2,297 homes were delivered. When we look at similar targets for 2018, the figure for local authority build, housing body build and Part V build is 4,409, which is a dramatic increase on the previous year. The numbers are increasing not decreasing.

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