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

According to my figures, the total build for Dublin City Council is 850 properties, while the target was 1,045. The council did not reach the target, achieving a little more than 80%. We must be fair to local authorities. For many years, the challenge they were facing was not trying to build housing but, rather, dealing with unfinished housing estates and land they bought that had significant debt on it because of the way the economy went after 2008 and 2009. They have been building their resources over several years and we are now seeing significant improvements. Dublin City Council did not hit its target but it made significant improvement on what it achieved in 2015 and 2017. Some local authorities are exceeding their targets, which is welcome.

A task force is being brought in for Galway city and county because the councils there are not performing as we want them to. Difficulties may exist between county boundary areas, as was the case in Cork. It is hoped that the expertise which brought about a greater than targeted increase in delivery in Cork will now be of assistance in Galway. Across all local authority areas, 96% of the national target was hit. Some local authorities are exceeding their targets, others are coming in on target and others are not meeting targets. My responsibility as Minister is to help local authorities which are not reaching their targets and see what extra resources we can provide to get them performing as well as other local authorities. There has been an eightfold increase in build since the year before Rebuilding Ireland. I congratulate local authorities on that significant achievement.

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