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

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform is reforming and adapting the public procurement frameworks to accommodate this and to make sure we can get projects going and not lose too much time in getting projects completed. In this case the developer has pulled out. I will ask the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, to get involved and to see if he can do something.

I refer to the points raised by Deputy Paul Murphy. I would not describe what I was doing earlier as “bluster”. On the issue of intervening in the jobs market, the point I was making is that there are 30,000 vacancies in the jobs market, which is up from 19,000 vacancies two years ago. We need to take focused and targeted approaches as we emerge from and evolve throughout the pandemic. We are not where we were when we were in level 5 and level 3 lockdowns; sectors of the economy are open. Anyone who has been on the PUP for more than 12 months will be targeted with activation measures to help them secure work. We will do whatever we can to support those people.

Deputy Tóibín raised the TILDA study. Covid has had an impact and this is a pandemic. We have provided unprecedented resources across the board, including community supports and mental health supports, to enable people to try to deal with this. There is no question but that it is stressful for people and it has dampened their future horizons. Delayed medical care is a sad, difficult and challenging reality of Covid-19, so we will put more resources in place to deal with that. We are hiring a lot more capacity from the private sector to deal with elective care, in particular, so that we can get operations, procedures and diagnostics done.

The report Deputy Haughey raised is an important framework within which to develop policy on community safety. In the north inner city last week I saw at first hand the significant progress that was made within that community due to the initiatives that have been taken in recent years. I am looking to see where wider application of that model can be carried out in other areas with a more multidisciplinary and multi-agency approach to dealing with a range of challenges that communities across the city and in other cities are facing. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, has made proposals in that regard.

Deputy Cian O’Callaghan made similar comments on that report and he raised the issue of first-time buyers. I agree houses are expensive and we need more supply. Since the last lockdown we have made a significant rebound in housing and there have been about 31,000 commencements from October 2020 to October 2021, which is good. The mortgage market is robust with significant increases in the number of people taking out mortgages. The help-to-buy scheme is helping people with affordability. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, has developed a range of affordability measures that are making a difference.

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