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

Housing is a significant concern for citizens and families across the State, be they people on the housing list waiting for social housing, people who want to buy their first home or a new home and are struggling to do so or people who are facing very high rents that take up a large proportion of their income. It has very much been the priority of Government to get on top of these issues over the past couple of years. While we have a lot to do, we are making progress in some areas. One of the areas where we have made the most progress is in the area of supply. A total of 18,000 new houses and apartments were built last year, more than any previous year this decade. That does not include student accommodation and other forms of housing. Roughly one quarter of that new housing was social housing, which is a higher proportion than we have seen for quite some time. This year, we anticipate that somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 new homes and apartments will be built in Ireland. Last year, the social housing stock increased by about 9,000 through many different mechanisms. It will increase by more than 10,000 this year and by 12,000 thereafter. Our objective is to double the social housing stock in this country over the next ten years. That is not a policy that is over reliant on the market.

We take a practical rather than an ideological view on this. We need the private sector and the State sector. We need social housing and private housing. We need houses for people on the housing list and houses for people who want to buy. The vast majority of people in Ireland still want to own their homes, which is a good thing and the reason we also need private developers. We also need a better rental model and better options for people who are renting, particularly the cost-rental model, which we are piloting in various parts of this city. I very much welcome the contributions of the Irish Council for Social Hosing today, a body that represents approved housing bodies. The council pointed out that approved housing bodies housed over 4,000 families last year and exceeded the targets set in Rebuilding Ireland. Approved housing bodies do this with public money. The money they use is taxpayers' money that has been assigned to them by the Government. That shows our commitment to delivering social housing through bodies such as those.

The announcement made last September about the Land Development Agency was not premature. It was the announcement of the establishment of the agency. The agency has now been established. It exists and has a CEO, board and staff. It was established by order. That was what was announced last September. The legislation is being worked on as priority by the Department of Finance and the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. The intention is for up to 50% of Land Development Agency sites to be used for social and affordable housing with the other half being used for homes for people to buy. This recognises that we want to see mixed integrated communities into the future, which is good policy, and that we also need to provide housing of all sorts - social housing for people on the housing list, homes for people who need to rent and homes for people to buy. We should never forget that the vast majority of people in Ireland want to be able to own their own homes. The rate of home ownership is 70%. That should be the case and we want that to increase, not decrease.

See this speech in context