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

The targets themselves do not build homes and the Deputy knows that. We are continuing to deliver homes at a scale we have not seen in more than 15 years. Not everybody is feeling that yet. It is a significant challenge. I meet people across this country, in my own constituency and everywhere else, who are getting the keys to their forever homes at a rate we have not seen for 15 years. We will continue to ramp that up and I am ambitious and determined that we do that. The targets will be set and revised in the autumn. That does not stop us doing the work we are doing now. The Deputy should look at the commencement and completion figures. There were 53,000 new homes commenced over the past 12 months. That is really significant. On vacancy, there are more than 8,000 applications for the vacancy grant and more than 5,000 approvals. I was in County Carlow this week, where 98 homes are being provided by bringing vacant stock back into use through the local authority.

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