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

We need all types of development in Ireland, including in our cities: housing, office buildings, hotels and student accommodation. We will have a population of 6 million by 2040. It is therefore not a case of either-or; we will need all sorts of development in our cities. While the block to which the Deputy refers has no housing in it, An Bord Pleanála just the other day approved planning permission for 3,500 homes in Poolbeg, consisting of a mixture of private, affordable and social housing at high densities. She is right about Tara Street, but not far from Tara Street is Poolbeg, where 3,500 residential units have been approved.

I have not been over to CHQ recently but I have been to Vienna many times. The model of public housing used in Vienna has merit. It is one of the reasons we are doing cost-rental housing on Emmet Road and in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, for example. What I find ironic, however, is that many of the people who laud the Vienna model are opposed to aspects of it here in Ireland. The Vienna model involves a relatively high local property tax being used to help subsidise housing, something very much opposed by the left in Ireland. The model does not involve direct build by local authorities; housing is provided through public private partnerships and affordable housing bodies, which the left in Ireland viciously opposes. The model also involves relatively low levels of home ownership. Most people in Vienna do not own their own homes; they are tenants. The model is buy-to-let.

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