Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is entirely possible, although it might be a new one on Deputy McDonald, to be able to report progress in an area of societal challenge and still wish to do more in that area. I travel around the country, as I am sure does the Deputy, most of the time anyway. As she travels around the country, I am sure she sees plenty of examples of new homes being built. I am sure she knocks on the doors of people who have new moved into new homes. I am sure she probably meets hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have benefited from schemes that for some bizarre reason she is against. Any first-time buyer watching this debate today, or the parent of a first-time buyer who has availed of the help to buy scheme, which the Deputy would abolish, whereby they get thousands of euro of their own money back, knows they would not have been able to save for a deposit without that scheme.

As I travel around the country, I see lots of progress when it comes to housing. I now know that there are 350 new homes being built in this country every single working day. Five hundred people a week are buying their first home. More than 32,000 homes have been built already.

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