Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. I saw the housing numbers today also. They are very encouraging. They are better than we had expected with 7,544 new dwellings completed in the three summer months of July, August and September. This is an increase of 62.5% on last year. The number of apartments has more than doubled. Over the first three quarters of this year, more than 20,000 new homes were built. We can confidently say we will reach our target of 25,000 new homes being built this year in Ireland. The Deputy is right. Apartment completions have increased a lot but they are still lagging behind housing. Two initiatives from the Government are taking place at present to activate apartment developments. One is the Croí Cónaithe process that the Deputy is aware of. It does not yet have European Commission approval but there is a lot of interest in it. We have agreed in principle to mandate the Land Development Agency to pre-purchase apartments for affordable housing and social housing to de-risk developments in order that they can go ahead and get started.

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