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

I concur with the Deputy's remarks. It is very much my view that if we are going to solve the housing crisis, make homes more available to more people and reduce the cost of housing, well then a big part of doing that, which is probably the main part, has to be more supply. We need to be building about 35,000 homes a year in Ireland. We are not doing that and the pandemic has not helped. However, we need to do that and we are only going to do it if we build housing of all sorts, including social, cost rental, public and private and one-off housing.

Any policy which states we should ban one type of housing or restrict investment in a different type of housing will result in less housing and that will make the situation worse. When I hear the Opposition speaking about housing, it seems to be a case of not here, not there, not anywhere, not that type, not this funding model, indeed, almost any excuse that can be come up with to oppose housing. It does make me wonder whether the Opposition, or elements of the Opposition, actually want the housing crisis to end.

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