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

I am not into the practice of keeping scorecards on ministerial accountability but I certainly keep close note of whether Ministers are achieving the objectives set for them in the programme for Government and in bilateral meetings. I am happy with the work of my Ministers but of course there are always issues of concern. Where there is concern, it is shared concern and my job as Taoiseach is to work with Ministers and assist them in meeting their objectives.

We should never forget where we are coming from with housing. We had seven years during which virtually no public housing was built because the Government was broke. We had seven years during which the private sector built few houses because the banks were bust and the construction industry was on the floor. We should not forget where we were in 2011. House prices were plummeting and many people were distressed because of that. Many were stuck in negative equity and paying mortgages on houses that were worth far less than they paid for them. There were ghost estates all over the country, homes infested with pyrite and tens of thousands of construction workers on the dole. I appreciate that the Leader of the Opposition apologised for that but the people are still suffering from the consequences of the housing, construction and credit bubbles and what they caused.

We are now seeing some progress. For the past two quarters, rents have increased by 1% or less than 1%. Having increased dramatically, they are now levelling off and that is encouraging. We have seen rough sleeping fall by 40% on the most recent count. Central Statistics Office figures show us that 14,446 new homes were built last year. That was a 50% increase on the year before and a 75% increase on the year before that. Of course that does not include 1,000 unfinished houses that were finished and nearly 2,500 that were reconnected. Student homes are being built too. We are finally starting to see an uptick in construction. Some 7,000 houses were added to the social housing stock last year through various mechanisms. However, we are catching up on a period of seven years when almost no new homes were built, so we have a way to go yet.

The Deputy asked me if I am happy. No, I am not happy and I will not be happy until the numbers of people in emergency accommodation are falling. I will not be happy until home ownership is increasing. I believe in home ownership. I know it is not possible for everyone to own their own home but I want as many people as possible to own their own homes. It distresses me greatly that people who are now buying their first homes are, on average, in their early to mid-30s, whereas it was the case for a long time that people in their mid-20s or late-20s would buy their first homes. We need that to change. We need to get back to the situation where home ownership in Ireland is rising again. That is very much an objective of mine and of Government. We will focus on this issue in the same way as the previous Government focused on solving the employment crisis. We want to apply the same effort and commitment to resolving the housing crisis.

The legislation on Housing Building Finance Ireland is now before the House. LIHAF has made two funding rounds, if not three. The objective of LIHAF is to provide infrastructure to sites so that they can be developed for housing with a proportion of those being affordable housing. I am not sure of the answer to Deputy Boyd Barrett's question but I will check up on it. Obviously, it is public money and if public money is being used to provide access to sites, then a decent proportion of the homes built on those sites, where practicable, should be affordable housing. The same principle should apply with Housing Building Finance Ireland. It is important to bear in mind when it comes to HBFI that the finance is not a grant. It is a loan and the developers will have to pay the money back in full with interest. This is something that the taxpayer or Exchequer will benefit from. It is very different from LIHAF, which is an Exchequer grant to local authorities to access sites. It is important not to confuse the two. I know no one in this House has but people in other places have.

The issue of unpaid private parliamentary secretaries has not been pursued. I do not propose to create any unpaid private parliamentary secretaries, or paid ones for that matter, during the period of this Government. However, it is something that could be considered for the future. I am aware that there is an unfair division of labour among Departments, Ministers and Ministers of State. It is evident that the Departments of Justice and Equality, Health and Housing, Planning and Local Government are required to be in the House far more often whether because of legislation, private members' business or committee work. There is a case to have private parliamentary secretaries in those busy Departments if they need to be represented in the Chamber all the time. The Judicial Appointments Commission Bill has been debated for 72 hours so far in this Chamber and the other Chamber. That is a vast amount of time for the Minister for Justice and Equality and the sole Minister of State at the Department to be in the Chambers. There is a case for the posts in the Departments with a busy parliamentary load but it is not something that I am pursuing during the period of this Government.

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