Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I also pay my deepest sympathies to Niamh Bhreathnach’s family, colleagues in the Labour Party and friends. I had the pleasure of meeting her on a couple of occasions. She was a fine person who leaves a strong legacy in education and will be sorely missed. I thank the Deputy for her kind remarks on the attendance from Government. There will be an appropriate time to pay tributes to an outstanding Minister for Education. I ask the Deputy to please pass on the Government’s deepest sympathies to the family and to colleagues in the Labour Party.

On housing, we are acutely aware of the scale of the challenge the Government and country face in relation to increasing housing provision across the board in all tenures. We are not reliant on the private sector. The Deputy made one point which I think is wholly incorrect. I say this respectfully. She talks of €1 billion being funnelled into the pockets of private landlords. That is €1 billion that supports 60,000 tenancies, real families on housing assistance payments. People who continue to make the charge that it is a subsidy or cash bonus for private landlords are wholly incorrect. It supports 60,00 households in this country. We have seen over the past three years a reduction in the increase in HAP. We are seeing people transfer out of HAP. How do we do that? We need to build more public homes and more affordable homes.

If the Deputy saw the recently published progress report for Housing for All, she will also have seen that last year, under Housing for All, we far exceeded our target for overall delivery. Just short of 30,000 new homes were build. We will deliver more new-built social homes in 2022 then we have done in 50 years, since 1975. Those figures will be published shortly. We have provided cost rental for the first time ever to hundreds of tenancies and want to do thousands. That is State-backed affordable rental at below-market price. I have met many of the tenants who have moved in. It is a very popular new form of tenure. There is affordable purchase for the first time in 15 years led by local authorities. I have approved 42 schemes with 2,800 new homes across 15 counties. The first home scheme has seen over 900 approvals already, which is 900 new homes that families are able to buy. Many of them were renting and stuck in a rental trap. We have bridged the viability and affordability gap for them.

The measures we have taken are taking hold. Housing for All has been in place for only one year and there is much more to do in that space. We want to build more social homes and affordable homes this year, and will do so.

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