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

The report mentioned by the Deputy in his first question represents a snapshot in time, rather than a trend over a 12-month period. There was a reduction in the statistic in question because completions were up, which is a very welcome development. As I said in my initial reply, over 25,000 new homes were made available to live in over the 12-month period up to the end of September 2018. There is no getting away from the fact that this marks a dramatic improvement on what was delivered in the previous 12-month period, up to the end of September 2017, and in the year before that. It is not about painting a rosy picture; it is about speaking to the facts which show that supply has been increasing dramatically.

The Deputy also asked about the information that is available with regard to social housing completions up to the end of the third quarter of last year. Between 35% and 40% of the build programme for the year had been completed by that date. Significantly, this marked an 80% increase on what had been achieved by the third quarter of 2017. This shows that local authorities had done a significant amount of additional work in a similar time period. We also saw that much more activity was happening in the fourth quarter of 2017. A big number of completions happened in that quarter. Similar questions were asked about third quarter data in 2017. We saw a dramatic increase in completions in the fourth quarter of that year because of the way the build programme is programmed and budgeted towards a strong level of delivery at the end of the year. As I said in my initial reply, in a couple of weeks I will be able to verify exactly what the 2018 output was in respect of build, acquisition and leasing, as well as other targets under Rebuilding Ireland.

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