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

We will not be diverted from the job we have to do because we have a responsibility as the elected Government of this country to make real strides in housing. I refer to some facts which some will not like. In the first year of Housing for All, 30,000 new homes were delivered, which is indisputable. There are more new social homes than since 1975, which is also indisputable. Affordable homes are available to purchase through local authorities for the first time in a generation, with thousands more to come and approved. Some 42 schemes have been approved across the country already. There are State-backed affordable rents - cost rentals - for the first time ever, which were opposed by the Social Democrats. There is more than €4 billion in annual investment by the State in housing. We published our plan, which is there for everyone to see. We financed it and we are implementing it. There is nothing comparable to that. It is about delivery and supply.

Deputy O'Reilly put forward her views, which she is perfectly entitled to do. On the ground in Fingal, her Sinn Féin party colleague, a councillor, opposed 1,200 new homes in Donabate, 253 of which were social-----

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