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

I do not accept the thesis that there is overreliance on the private sector because that implies we should, maybe, have the same number of houses but with more public and fewer private. I have a different view: we need more public housing and more private housing. We need more private housing for people who want to buy and own their first home, which is a social objective we should all get behind. Also, we need more public housing for people who cannot afford to buy their own home. It is not a case of having more or less of either; we need more of both. That is the view of the Government.

I do not accept the argument that we are not scaling up the delivery of public housing by the State. When people study this, they need to acknowledge there is more to the State than local authorities, or councils. For example, the Land Development Agency, LDA, which has about 4,000 homes either under construction or in planning, is a State body. The State funds approved housing bodies, such as the Iveagh Trust, the Peter McVerry Trust, Clúid Housing and other such bodies that we admire, to provide social housing. Anyone talking about public housing in the State who looks only to local authorities is either not fully knowledgeable or disingenuous, because there is more to the State and local authorities.

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