Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State's words of commitment are welcome. Issues relating to additional staff for local authorities are very important. There is a fundamental issue in respect of affordable housing that very often when proposals come to local authorities, the default position seems to be to fall back on social housing delivery rather than affordable housing. That mindset needs to change. We have to build the systems so that affordable housing becomes a reality. The cost to the State of affordable housing is a lot less. It is providing a mechanism for the cohort I described to gain home ownership. We need to ramp it up. Affordable housing needs to be affordable and, at present, in many cases, it is not. The State is already subsidising the delivery of affordable housing to a large extent but we have to do more to give hope to those individuals and families who are trying to gain home ownership.

I thank the Minister of State for making specific reference to the schemes in south Cork. They are schemes I am very aware of and I am putting a strong focus on trying to ramp up delivery. It is good to hear the commitment this morning.

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