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

There is lots of good news. To answer the Deputy's question, there is also good news for County Clare because we have a housing plan backed with real resources and the largest housing budget in the history of the State, which the Deputy supported, underpinned by investment of €3.3 billion in housing programmes in budget 2021. We have a national target of 12,750 social homes, 9,500 of which are new builds. There will be an impact due to Covid but we are doing our best to make up as much lost ground as we can. In County Clare, the council set a target for this year to deliver 227 new social homes, with 195 new builds. That shows the emphasis that the Government has and that Deputy Crowe had as mayor in pushing towards new builds and increasing our housing stock.

The social housing construction status report is published each quarter and provides scheme-level data on newly built social housing in every local authority area, including Clare. Details about the stage of each project can be found in the status report. The most recent report covered the period until the end of the first quarter of 2020 and provides details of 47 separate social housing schemes across Clare. Since 2016, 245 homes have been completed in 29 schemes. The report also shows that 177 homes are in progress across nine schemes right now, with a further 128 in Clare at various stages of the design and pre-tender process. It is a significant pipeline of homes that we will increase further in the housing for all plan which the Government will publish in the coming weeks.

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