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

I do not doubt for a second the depth of the housing crisis affecting so many of our citizens, whether they are in emergency accommodation at hotels or bed and breakfasts, spending a large proportion of their take-home pay on rent or seeking to buy for the first time by putting together a deposit and finding a home they can afford. We are hard at work as a Government to deal with this. What I can offer the citizen the Deputy mentioned is, first, more supply of housing and apartments, which is fundamental to solving this crisis. We do not know the numbers yet for last year but we suspect that between 19,000 and 20,000 new houses and apartments were built, which is the largest number for a decade. While it is not enough, it is going in the right direction and more than in any other year this decade. Of those, more than 4,500 were public housing units built by local authorities or affordable housing bodies. When was the last time approximately 25% of new housing built in Ireland was public housing? It has not happened for a very long time.

The Deputy mentioned the cost rental model. It has a great deal of merit. As a Government, we have seen how it has worked in other places to provide affordable accommodation, in particular in cities. The Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government has seen it working in Vienna. It is being pursued, including in the Deputy's own constituency at the Emmet Road development which she has supported. It contains a significant proportion of cost-rental housing. As part of the remit of the new Land Development Agency, LDA, between 40% and 50% of public and private land it develops will be public housing of some form, including traditional social housing units, affordable housing and even cost-rental.

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