Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have binned the non-adversarial approach and now someone asks me for unrealistic proposals. We may have just heard one but, having said that, I am interested in results and building homes. That is what we are about. I am not sure how many homes the Deputy or his ideology has built in this State. It is probably none. What we are about is delivering homes for people and for families. I know that is something that is of interest to the Deputy.

To answer Deputy O'Callaghan's question, which he put in a constructive way, I will look at realistic proposals. I will not close the door on anything. It may turn out that it is Deputy Boyd Barrett's proposal to raise the social housing limits. It may be people with €500,000 salaries or whatever or maybe we just pull the money out of the sky and build whatever we want but we have to be realistic about it. I will fund the public housing on it. We have done that already. The 253 units I referred to are funded under the Department. I want to see good, affordable housing for purchase and rent but, to be fair, I want to give the local authority some space to assess what it will come back to me on.

I have said I am open to working with them on it. I will meet the local authority at 10 a.m. tomorrow and intend to see how we can move it forward. I do not mean to be disrespectful to Deputy Boyd Barrett. I respect him. I know we are all interested in this and there is some frustration that homes are not being delivered more quickly. This Government will change that, and I would like to be able to work with colleagues to do it.

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