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

-----they are built by a private provider and they were one-beds and two-beds. However, if we look at the facts, look at the homelessness and look at the housing shortage, the areas we need the most new housing in are one-beds and two-beds. We need family homes as well, but the biggest shortage is for one-beds and two-beds and these are the kind of things Deputy Boyd Barrett and people who share his ideology seem to regularly object to.

We built over 30,000 new homes last year. That is up from 20,000 when I first became Taoiseach back in 2017 and up from 7,000 when my party got into office. We are scaling this up and doing so as fast as we possibly can. We are not willing to cut corners because we saw what happened in the past when that was done. It should not be a case of public versus private. If we try to fix the housing crisis with just the public sector we are putting one hand behind our backs. I understand the Deputy's position based on his politics and ideology - and he is entitled to his ideology - is that pretty much all houses, or the vast majority, should be built by the State. That is a mistake. We would build fewer and it would cost more. What we want is the public sector and the private sector working together.

He is right about the skills shortage. We know that is an issue. That is why the Minister, Deputy Harris, in particular, has led the charge on apprenticeships. We now have about 10,000 people becoming apprentices every year now, which is pretty extraordinary. We have also changed the work permit and work visa system to allow more people with construction skills from outside the EU to come here. They are much-needed and they are very welcome. We are investing in modern methods of construction, MMC, so we can build homes much more quickly. The Deputy is welcome to come out to Church Fields in my constituency to see where Fingal County Council, a public body, is building hundreds of social and affordable homes using MMC.

I encourage councils that are not doing that to do it. The whole point of local government is autonomy. The latter allows councils to do different things. There are good examples of very good councils - of best-practice councils. I ask people to come to Fingal and see what a local authority, a public body, is doing in my constituency, using MMC and building hundreds of social and affordable houses. It is the same in the Deputy's constituency, in Shanganagh, which he always refuses to acknowledge.

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