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

If we all believe, as I do, that we are in a crisis and that we need emergency responses, none of us should leave today and oppose the development of housing in our constituencies. More than that, we should work with councillors in our own parties, or councillors over whom we have influence, to make sure they are not opposing the building of houses. Let the planners do their work, according to the systems in place, and let houses be built because they are needed.

In my contribution last week I spoke about a young mother whom I had had the privilege to meet who was living in a hub and waiting for a home. I told the Dáil that I had told that mother that she was going to receive a home because every family who had gone into the hub before her had been given a home, that we were building thousands of homes to provide social and other types of housing. Earlier this week I was very pleased to hear that she had been allocated a home. While it is fantastic news for her, it is not enough for so many others. It has always been very clear to me that the State has to do the heavy lifting when it comes to resolving the crisis. What that means is a massive housing programme that will see 110,000 social housing homes added to the stock of social housing in the next ten years. Almost 8,000 homes will be added to the stock of social housing this year alone. Thousands are on sites across the country. We have the lists which are published. Houses are being built on local authority land; it is happening and it is important that we continue to support it. As I said, if a local authority needs to buy a home or lease a home long-term to help families out of homelessness, I will not oppose it in a time of crisis. If we look at our plans which came from the Oireachtas joint committee's recommendations, in 2020 and 2021 we will house more people from the stock of social housing than we will in the private rental sector. That is where our plans really begin to show what is being done through the increases in the stock of social housing that are being provided in their thousands.

When we look at the challenges we face in building new homes, one challenge we do not face is a lack of investment by the taxpayer. Some €6 billion of taxpayers' money has been put behind the plan. Asking for the money to double will not lead to delivery being doubled next year or halve the time it takes to build new houses. It does not work that way, as I think people understand.

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