Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First, I welcome Mr. Barry Ryan and wish him well with his new role. I also welcome Deputy McDonald back to full health. It is good to have her back.

The Government will not support the Sinn Féin mortgage interest relief motion this evening. The day to make a decision regarding how we respond to mortgage holders who are under serious financial pressure is budget day, and we will do that. The Ministers for Finance and Social Protection have both made it clear that they are looking at ways in which we can support households that are under financial pressure because of ten interest rate increases in a row. Many homes in the country are under significant financial pressure as a result of that. I recognise the sentiment behind what the Deputy is proposing. To provide mortgage interest relief for everybody would be enormously expensive and, therefore, if the Government is going to do something in this space, we want it to be targeted and we want to get money to the families who need financial support the most. We will have a budget in three weeks when the Government will respond to the overall issue.

On the broader question of housing, it is important to say that we are seeing significant numbers of first-time buyers now buying their new homes. We have seen approximately 17,500 first-time buyers purchase homes over the past 12 months out of 50,000 or so homes that have been for sale. That is a significant increase on anything we have seen over the past ten or 15 years. We are seeing significant measures funded by Government to support homeownership whether it is the help-to-buy scheme, local authority home loans, the first-time shared equity scheme or by now providing €50,000 or €70,000 in grant aid to actually get vacant or derelict properties back into use. Many of these measures, by the way, are ones that the Deputy's party voted against as, indeed, did other Opposition parties. The Government is absolutely focused on trying to help people to own their own homes and on delivering approximately 5,500 affordable homes this year, which is significantly more than has been provided for a very long time. Of course, we will also deliver in and around 12,000 social homes this year, which is significantly more than anything we have seen since the 1970s. The total housing budget will be approximately €4.5 billion, which is more than double what it was a few years ago.

We do recognise that we continue to have a housing crisis in Ireland. Many households are under pressure but the Government will continue to respond by delivering more in terms of supply. Housing supply increased last year by 45% on the previous year with 30,000 new homes delivered. I also believe we will surpass the target set for this year before the end of the year. That being said, there is still an awful lot more to do. We will continue to focus as our number one priority in terms of domestic policy and response in government to try to support people who are under pressure for housing reasons, whether it is finding a first home, accessing social housing and affordable housing or trying to get out of the nightmare of homelessness on which the Government will also support families.

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