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

The Deputy will not know this but my grandfather is an O'Sullivan from Adrigole. I know the area well enough, but not as well as I would like. I was due to go down there again to look at social housing provision in Castletownbere and on Bere Island and to see how we could use public money to help repopulate parts of our country in line with the national planning framework and what we want to do in the broadband plan. I will have to refer back to the Deputy on the Bandon and Dunmanway sites. I do not want to give him the wrong information and I do not have it to hand now.

An important thing we have been able to do, notwithstanding the emergency and the closure of construction sites generally, is with regard to between 35 to 40 sites now open where social housing homes are being built. It is approximately 1,000. There were 6,500 homes under construction on site at the end of last year and about 1,000 of them are back under construction because they were almost at completion. Working with the Housing Agency we gave sanction to local authorities to open certain sites. There is a next wave coming but that will probably be overtaken by the lifting of restrictions on 18 May for construction generally. We are trying to get that started up very quickly.

Indeed, work is under way on some sites at the moment.

With regard to how we approach planning and house-building in some parts of the country, particularly smaller villages and towns, there were a number of pilot schemes. We are now trying to ascertain whether we can broaden them into national schemes so we will see new homes being built, and not just vacant homes being repurposed, under the funding lines. It is important work. It will be faced by the next Government.

A major part of the national planning framework is making sure 75% of future growth will happen outside Dublin. We have identified different regions, regional drivers and balances of growth between regions that we want to achieve. These can be achieved only if we are building new homes in almost every part of the country, but also building with the right planning strategy in place. We do not want to build homes and leave people stranded in them without services and a community.

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