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

I absolutely agree that we are experiencing a housing emergency in Ireland. That is why we have taken so many emergency actions down the years and in the last few months to try to deal with it. However, describing something as an emergency does not, in itself, change anything. You have to take actions. That is why we built more social housing last year than in any year in my lifetime or the Deputy's, since 1975. I am sure we will break that record again this year. We are using modern methods of construction including modular housing to provide housing both for people coming from Ukraine and for people who are on the housing list, including homeless people. That is something we are going to do. However, I need to be honest with the House. We have looked into this in detail and, while we are going to use modular housing and modern methods of construction, they are not a quick fix. You still need a site serviced with electricity, utilities and roads. You need to order the modular housing and it needs to be built and delivered. There are even technical issues including the need to make sure there are no bridges that are too low on the route from a factory to a site. There are a million things that complicate this, but we are doing it. It is not a quick fix, however.

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