Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

Today is a significant day in terms of housing policy in Ireland. It comes after a number of decisions the Government has already taken. This plan today needs to be seen in the context of the national development plan published this summer, where we significantly increased the level of investment directly in house building. After listening to people across the country, local authorities and people who build our homes, we also significantly increased the funding for the enabling infrastructure, investing more than €50 billion between water, transport and energy to enable housing supply. The plan also needs to be seen in the context of a piece of work that will conclude at the end of this month, which will speed up the delivery of infrastructure. Something we can all agree on is that we need to accelerate the delivery of infrastructure. There are too many communities in which it is taking too long to deliver vital projects. We were very clear during the election that fixing this would be a key priority for the Government.

It is also important to say that, yes, we are living though a housing emergency, and the purpose of the plan today is to make real progress and deliver 300,000 more homes during the lifetime of the plan, but it is also important for people watching at home to know there are some encouraging signs too. In the first half of this year, we saw completion of new homes at the highest it has been since 2008. We saw the number of new dwellings completed in the first three quarters of this year increase by 13% on the same period last year. These are additional new homes completed compared with the same period last year. For quarter 1 to quarter 3 of this year, we saw the highest completion figure of apartments for any time since 2011 when data started to be gathered. Something that is never said in this House from the Opposition benches is that we have seen the highest number of first-time buyers draw down their mortgage since 2007. We have seen more than 11,000 properties being approved under the vacant property refurbishment grant. The scale of challenge in relation to housing and ramping up housing supply is real and acute, but these are also real statistics that are having real benefits in the lives of people across our country.

The Deputy said today, as I expected him to say, no matter what was in the plan - I could have said it for him - that there is nothing new in the plan. Of course, that is not true. There are many new things in this plan, including a new €1 billion infrastructure investment fund to help to de-risk the development of sites in towns and cities to maximise their potential opportunities. There are measures to enable developers to deliver new stand-alone wastewater treatment plants in rural Ireland. Across my constituency and the country I have heard of parts of our country where it has not been possible to build any homes because of the inability to allow a developer to deliver a wastewater treatment plant, albeit to an Irish Water standard.

There is a new fund, which I presume the Deputy will welcome, of €400 million over the next three years for small developers. I do not think he does welcome it.

See this speech in context