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

It appears that Deputy Howlin is applying some pretty unfair double standards in that regard because the situation emerged and got worse during the tenure of the two former Ministers. It is unfair to target the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, personally when the Deputy is not willing to express a lack of confidence in his own colleagues. Let us not forget that 40% of the Labour parliamentary party held the housing brief for five years.

The Government is delivering on the issue of supply. As I pointed out, we will have built more new homes and apartments this year than in any other in this decade. Between 18,000 and 20,000 new homes and apartments have been built this year, but we acknowledge that it is not happening fast enough. We are going to do everything we possibly can to get around the constraints and reach our new housing targets of 25,000 next year and 30,000 the year after. They are the numbers we need to reach in order to get on top of the crisis.

The Land Development Agency has already been established under law. We established it using a statutory instrument. It has a CEO and started its work.

We are absolutely committed to producing the micro-beads legislation. The Minister has been in contact with Deputy Sherlock to discuss how we can co-operate to bring it into law.

On directly elected mayors, we always said there would have to be a plebiscite first. There will be a plebiscite and it will be held in May.

See this speech in context