Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Murnane O'Connor joined the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and I at the opening of three wonderful housing projects in Castlecomer and Kilkenny city last week, which is always a positive day. It is so uplifting to hand keys over to families and new tenants for very high-quality, A2-rated, highly efficient and well-designed homes. That is what we are attempting to achieve, and will achieve, with Housing for All.

Increasing the supply of social and affordable homes is a priority for this Government, as shown clearly in the new Housing for All strategy.  Following the recent launch of the strategy, last week we issued social housing targets to all local authority chief executives for the five years 2022 to 2026.  Of the national target of over 50,000 new social homes, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is asking Carlow County Council to deliver 464 over those years, through its own projects and also working with the housing associations. I acknowledge that Carlow County Council, with good support from public representatives, has always delivered well on its social housing targets to date. It also has a solid pipeline of new projects in place and I am keen that it advances these as speedily as possible.

New social housing projects are already on-site in areas such as at Chapelstown in Carlow town and at Ballickmoyler in Graigcullen, while I hope to see others such as the 22 homes planned for Gleann na Bearú in Bagenalstown move through planning and procurement as soon as possible and start on-site.  Under Housing for All, the funding is in place to support Carlow County Council and all councils, and the housing associations to get these housing projects built.

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