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

-----so I am unable to comment on their content. However, the monitoring of the capital plan, the national development plan and the implementation and delivery of Project Ireland 2040 is done by both the line Department or agency that is responsible for a project and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, which has overall oversight of the delivery of the capital programme. It is not done by my Department. We have a system, however, whereby a Department can make me and my office aware of a problem. That is the early warning system which is carried out at Secretary General or Minister-to-Minister level. I often receive early warnings of things that may or may not happen through that system, but did not about the children's hospital.

I will have to get an update on the Open Government Partnership for Deputy Howlin. He was very enthusiastic about it when he was a Minister and we were making progress on it, but I am not up-to-date on it. When I get the update I will pass it on to him.

The Government's policy on housing is to increase the stock of social housing, and we are doing that. It is the best way to reduce reliance on rent supplements and HAP into the future. It has to be scaled up because for a long time very few houses were built by the State. That is changing. The figures produced today by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government show that approximately 8,500 new homes were added to the social housing stock last year. Roughly half of those were built by local authorities and affordable housing bodies such as the Iveagh Trust, Clúid Housing Association and so forth.

The other half consisted of voids brought back into use, houses purchased by local authorities or affordable housing bodies and houses that were leased for the long term. This represents a very considerable increase in the social housing stock. I do not know when the last time was that the social housing stock was increased by 8,500. It could be a very long time ago. Of the 18,000 new houses and apartments built last year, roughly 4,500, or 20%, were built by the State. Again, I am not sure when the last time was that the State built 20% of the homes in the country but we need to be at that kind of level, going from 18,000 a year up to something closer to 35,000 and increasing our social housing stock by approximately 10,000 homes a year. Obviously, if the social housing stock is increased by 10,000 homes a year, it will be increased by 100,000 homes in a decade. This would be a considerable step change in the amount of social housing and public housing we have, and that is what we plan to do.

In talking about the budget mix, we always need to bear in mind the difference between capital and current. As a long-term investment, building or purchasing houses and adding them to the social housing stock makes more sense than HAP or rent supplement. On a very logical and micro basis, however, it must be borne in mind that it may cost €150,000 to build a new home from scratch for a family in need of social housing but that for the same amount of money one could rent ten houses. For the same amount of money spent in one year, therefore, one could house one family or ten. When one is faced with huge demand for housing and huge housing need, it often makes more sense to house the ten families rather than the one, even if one takes the 20-year view that it would be cheaper to house the one and not the ten, if that makes any sense.

Regarding Owen Keegan's comments the other day, I do not believe that anyone chooses to be homeless. Certainly, I do not think any children are homeless by choice. There are really two main causes of homelessness, in particular family homelessness: one is family breakdown, which I do not think is a choice; the other is a notice to quit being issued by a landlord who is renovating, moving back into or selling on the property. Again, that is not a choice made by the tenant in respect of whom the notice to quit has been issued. Therefore, if there are people who are making themselves homeless to skip the queue or to avail of services, I imagine they are very few and far between and are exceptional cases. I therefore do not agree with Mr. Keegan's comments. It was interesting, however, that in the debate that was held there was wide agreement from Owen Keegan to Mike Allen of Focus Ireland that homeless services had improved considerably in Ireland and in Dublin in recent years. This is happening through the development of the family hub programme. Hubs are much better for all kinds of reasons than shelter accommodation, bed and breakfast accommodation or hotels. I refer to the availability of the HAP place-finder, for example, and the additional social and other supports that are provided to people who find themselves homeless. It was good that while there was disagreement on what Owen Keegan had to say, there was widespread agreement, from NGOs to political parties, that homeless services had improved very considerably in Dublin in recent years. It was good to hear that acknowledged.

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