Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. The funding we are providing in the current year is sufficient to deliver the direct build of 9,500 new social homes in our country. When we compare that to the last year for which we have full figures in the pre-Covid context, 2019, that figure was less than 6,000 units actually built. This year, the funding is provided for local authorities and approved housing bodies to build 9,500 units, so that is a dramatic increase in funding and in output, by any measure. Clearly, there will be an impact from Covid because of the shutdown of the construction sector for much of the early part of this year. That 9,500 units was part of an overall increase of 12,750 units in the social housing stock. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is making very significant progress with colleagues across the House in the passage of a suite of legislation that will enable him to deliver affordable housing, both affordable purchase and affordable rental, which is also critical, in addition to increasing the public housing stock through the scale of investment I touched on earlier, which will be continuing.

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