Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Cairns.

I definitely agree with the Deputy on one point, which is that politics and the next election certainly cannot be about who comes up with the biggest figure in terms of the number of homes they are going to deliver because the public will rightly see through that. People will be much more interested in the how. That is absolutely right. Deputy Cairns said everybody knows we need 60,000 homes. That is kind of neither here nor there. What people need to know is how we are going to get there. The idea that we could have gone from a low base of under 7,000 homes being built in 2011, to 60,000 homes any earlier than now, is not borne out by any evidence. I would be very happy to meet the housing expert and the construction expert who would counter that point. We are in a situation now where we will see close to 40,000 homes delivered this year. These people buying new homes are not imaginary. The Deputy tells a story of the housing challenge, which is real. It is absolutely real. What is also real is that there are 500 first-time buyers buying their own home every single week. That is real. Surely the Deputy must meet these people as she goes around the country. She must meet these people in her constituency. I certainly meet them in mine so I do not know how the rest of the Deputies do not meet them. I meet people every single week buying their homes. They are buying homes that did not exist only a few years ago. This is because there is 128,000 additional homes that have been either added to or brought back into our national housing stock in the lifetime of this Government; 116,000 of them being new-build homes as well.

It is not just my word or my anecdote that shows there is progress in terms of people being able to access their own home. If we look at mortgage drawdowns, not commencements, not completions but the number of people drawing down a mortgage, it is true to say that the first-time buyer drawdown reached a peak of almost 26,000 last year, which was the highest annual level since 2007. When the Deputy refers to a loss of hope, I fully accept there are huge challenges when it comes to housing, not just in Ireland but right across Europe, but I also know there is very significant hope when we saw more first-time buyers last year than any year since 2007 draw down their first mortgage. These are real people and they are real facts. That matters as well.

When it comes to the issue of affordability, I am absolutely aware, and you would want to live under a rock not to be aware, of the huge challenges people face in trying to get their deposit together to buy a home. I met people as recently as Sunday on doorsteps who raised that issue with me. However, I am also aware when I engage with those people that there are a number of supports the Government has put in place that is making a very significant different to them, whether that is the help to buy scheme, where about 50,000 people have now benefited, or the first home scheme, where we are helping to bridge the gap between what you can get as a mortgage and what you can afford in the price of a house. When we look at headline house figures, that does not tell the full story because we are intervening at a level of subsidy that is without precedent in this country. I will read the Deputy's plan. I have not yet read it but I hope she would commit, if in government, to keeping some of those schemes. If not, there are tens of thousands of people who are hoping to avail of them in the months and years ahead who will be terribly disappointed.

See this speech in context