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

I am afraid I cannot comment in great detail about the precise situation in the Deputy's county as I am not fully briefed on it. The Deputy might elaborate on demountable homes. It is not a term I am familiar with, but perhaps one with which I should be.

In terms of the broader picture, across Ireland 18,000 homes have commenced construction in the past year. That is a significant increase. We had a period of seven years during which almost no new homes were built in Ireland because the Government could not afford to build social housing and because the banks and construction sector were on the floor. We are very much playing catch-up. We have much to catch up on, but with 18,000 new homes having commenced construction in the past year, we are now building more new homes in Ireland than at any point in seven years. We need to ramp that up to 25,000 next year and 35,000 the following year.

Last year, we added 7,000 new homes to our social housing stock through different mechanisms, including direct build, approved housing bodies, leases and voids, and we will add almost another 8,000 this year. We are ramping that up again and increasing the supply of social housing.

The Deputy mentioned funding. Specifically, €6 billion is being provided for investment in housing between now and 2021. That is an enormous investment in housing between now and 2021. It will deliver 110,000 extra social housing units for people to live in between now and 2021. That is a huge uplift in investment.

Separately, as the Deputy will be aware, under Project Ireland 2040 we have set out a plan for the nation. It is a plan for a country with 1 million more people living here by 2040, with most of that growth happening outside of Dublin, the other cities growing twice as fast as Dublin and an extra 200,000 people living in rural Ireland. Indeed tomorrow, the Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Ring, will announce further details of the €1 billion rural regeneration fund which will be deployed over the next decade.

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