Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is two months in office, despite Deputies' best efforts. An extra €800 million on top of the outturn last year has been allocated to housing. There is €450 million for 3,000 new homes and also funding to fund substantial numbers of tenant in situ homes under that particular programme. The State's investment is enormous relative to historic norms in respect of housing in this country. That is why I am saying that parallel with that, there simply has to be a greater degree of private sector investment. If we look at the fall off last year, apartment block building is a huge area of concern. Deputy Bacik criticised the planning Act which took about three years to get through this House, despite all of the pre-legislative scrutiny and all the rest of it. It is the most substantive and important piece of legislation to enable us to streamline planning decisions and planning timelines through the new planning commission. As well as that, the national planning framework is key to zoning more land so that we can get more houses built more quickly.

This is a very important piece of work that we will roll out. The Government will approve this very shortly.

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