Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour)

In his reply, the Tánaiste did not address any of the specific questions I asked. The fact of the matter is that there are elements in this plan that I welcome. Some of those elements are things that we already proposed, such as amending the law to ensure the best interests of children are taken into account by local authorities when families become homeless. Former Deputy Jan O'Sullivan had that in a Bill in 2017.

The fact is that the State is not doing enough in terms of directly building social and affordable housing. Most of the homes that the LDA delivered in recent years were turnkey units. The State is investing significant sums in housing but a lot of it is going into inflationary schemes. When I talk to local authorities, they do not want financial incentives. They want the Department to engage with them properly and work with them constructively, not to stand in their way. They are very keen to get on with the job of building the homes we need.

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