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

I do not seek to justify it. I explained to the Deputy what the major cause was and what we are doing to make sure there is not a recurrence of it this year. I do not dispute any of the facts the Deputy put across, but they are not the full facts. As a party, the Social Democrats preach honest politics, but that requires context and the full facts.

Last year, 30,000 new homes were built, more than any year for a very long time. When my party came into office, only 7,000 new homes were being built. There has been a more than fourfold increase in new home building since my party came into office. Under this Government, more social housing was built last year than any year since the 1970s. The number of families in social housing today is 40,000 higher than it was when my party entered office. The percentage of households benefiting from social housing is higher than it was ten years ago. That totally demolishes the false claim that the Deputy and people like him often make, namely, that my party is opposed to social housing. In percentage terms or raw numbers - however one wants to look at it - it has gone up in the past ten years, not down.

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