Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government understands the frustration of many people who marched yesterday to make a point on housing. We are in the midst of a very pressurised situation for many families who are renting, cannot afford to purchase their own home or are waiting for social housing. The biggest priority in Government with regard to the domestic political agenda is and has been housing for quite some time. Over the past two years, we have delivered 15,000 new social houses. This year, we will deliver approximately 8,000 extra. Next year, it will be close to 10,000 and in the years after that, it will be close to 12,000, year on year, every year. We committed a huge capital package many months ago to delivering on that. The impression that some people would like to give, that this Government has some kind of ideological objection to putting public money into building social housing for people who cannot afford to buy their own homes, is absolutely untrue and not borne out by the facts. We are committed to a dramatic increase in the provision of publicly funded social housing, with 100,000 in the next ten years. We will follow through on that. That will be seen clearly in next week's budget and also in capital commitment. The projects which are chosen are those which have been assessed by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, working with local authorities throughout the country to make sure that we deliver as many affordable and social houses as we can in the shortest timeframe that we can do it.

In my experience as Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, then and now, money is not the main obstacle to delivering the volume of houses that we need in the short to medium term. Processes and decision-making have delayed the pace of delivery of social housing, which is increasing by the month. Looking at virtually any metric relating to supply, whether it is the number of first-time buyers purchasing homes or affordable houses that they are accessing or social houses being delivered or planning permission applications being submitted and granted, or at the money the Government continues to spend on homeless services as well as housing, all of those are moving in the right direction, but I know it cannot happen quickly enough for many people. The housing plan that I was involved in, this Government has endorsed and the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, is building on, was always a five-year plan to correct and essentially reshape a housing market from the perspective of rentals, social housing and private purchases. That takes time to fix.

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