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

When this Government came in, I was very clear with people, and we published Housing for All as well, that we were dealing with a legacy issue of ten years of very significant undersupply of housing. There is absolutely pent-up demand. What have we done since then? Up to quarter 1 this year, we delivered 110,000 new homes. That does not include the thousands of vacant homes we brought back into use. That is real progress. Not everyone is feeling that yet, but we see it throughout the country. We see new housing developments in every town, village and city. In April, there were 18,000 new housing starts in that month alone. Some 53,000 new homes have been started in the past 12 months.

We are reviewing the housing targets. I have been very open about that. There has been a deficit because of ten years of undersupply. We are making progress on that. We will revise the targets and publish them in the autumn, taking into account the very good work the commission did. We will also look at the ESRI work when its survey and analysis comes in. That will help us frame the new housing targets to the end of the decade.

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