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

This is not a question of money or resources. They are in place. There is a €6 billion ring-fenced fund over the life of the Rebuilding Ireland programme. When I needed an additional €100 million last year, I was able to secure it and that went into homes and emergency accommodation. Last year, when I also went looking for €500 million for Rebuilding Ireland, I was able to secure it so that we could hit the target from the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government of putting 50,000 homes into the social housing stock. That is happening. Work is happening, and the different figures we have tell us that is happening, but not every site can be developed at the same time. Some of the larger sites in Dublin, in particular, are the more difficult sites because they have many legacy issues. Those, however, have been resolved over time and we are now in a position to start work on many of those sites.

On a site like St. Michael's, a key site in the city, there is great potential for public housing that could really benefit many people on lower incomes who are locked out of the rental market or the housing market. We want to do that, but if we get it wrong when we do it for the first time at scale, then it will not happen again. We have to make sure that we get it right. I will be in O'Devaney Gardens next week as well because progress is being made on that site. We have a pipeline of works to be done. Housing will be built on these big sites, but on the social housing side of things, there are dramatic increases in house building as well as on the private side. We are now talking about affordability, which is key. This new funding is there and it will deliver it.

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