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

Housing for All, which is the Government's housing plan, has had a really good start. At the moment, 300 to 400 people are buying their first homes every week.

That is the highest number since the Celtic tiger period. It gives me a lot of hope and confidence that we are going to be able to turn the tide on home ownership into the future. Some 30,000 new homes were built last year, and we expect a similar number to be built this year. That is more than have been built in over a decade. We are building public housing. We built more social housing last year than in any year since the 1970s, and more than Sinn Féin has ever built in Northern Ireland. We are going to build more again this year. That is our commitment. We are doing all of those things. After a slowdown last year in commencements, we have seen the number of commencements bouncing back in the past three months. The number of new homes being started is increasing again, which, I imagine, is a matter of concern for Sinn Féin. We are also likely to meet our overall supply target again this year, with more than 29,000 new homes expected to be built. That does not include student accommodation or derelict homes being brought back into use.

We need to do more. We understand the scale and depth of the crisis. We understand that people are suffering. That is why the Government decided earlier today to do more. As I have said many times, our mission is to restore the social contract and make home ownership affordable again. What we have decided to do today flows from the interim advice given to the Government by the Housing Commission in February, the housing summit I hosted with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, in January and the ideas that have come from the three Government parliamentary parties. First, it is about reducing the cost of construction - the cost of building a new home. Second, it is about increasing the pace at which derelict and vacant properties are brought back into use. It is also about the Government co-funding the construction of apartments for affordable rental and cost rental, which is a new form of public ownership brought into existence by this Government.

The Deputy's charge is predictable but it is not true. One of the things we announced earlier is that we are going to increase the grants we give to people to enable them to bring vacant and derelict properties back into use to €50,000 and €70,000, respectively. That is not giving money to developers; it is giving money to young people and not-so-young people to bring vacant properties back into use in order that they can live in them or, in some cases, rent them out. I cannot believe Sinn Féin is against that. The Deputies opposite should not be against that; they should be supporting us in respect of it. Another decision we made today is to waive development levies for a year. This move is designed to stimulate and bring forward construction. Among those who will benefit from that are people throughout urban and rural Ireland who are building their own homes. I cannot believe Sinn Féin is against those people, as appears to be the case. When it comes to removing the development levies for schemes, the effect of what we are doing will be that instead of the cost of public infrastructure - footpaths, roads, community centres, playgrounds and open spaces - being imposed on developers and home purchasers, it will be socialised instead. We are saying that this is a public good, that this is public infrastructure and that we are going to pay for it out of taxes because we can afford to do so. It is remarkable that a party that claims to be what Sinn Féin claims to be could be against all those things.

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