Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, as I have said, the core Government priority is to build houses, both social and affordable, and to release more State land to facilitate the building of houses and get more delivery in developing houses overall. In respect of HAP, that scheme has been there long before this Government was formed, going back, as the Deputy said, to 2014. It is a more expensive way than social leasing, it has been asserted to me. Be that as it may, I do not believe that leasing is the optimal way to provide social housing. In the immediate short term, however, it gives us the opportunity, given the shortage of direct builds, the need to build up capacity on direct builds and as part of the wider suite of measures in the intervening period, to ensure that over the next 18 months, or maybe 12 months, 2,400 families will get social housing. That is the priority.

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