Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Construction workers continued to be demonised and there is no support for small self-employed builders. There was also no PRSI net available to builders if they got caught out badly, which many of them did. These measures and others, such as the 20% deposit, have fed into the housing crisis. It is not sufficient for us to put our heads in our hands and say the crisis arose because of a lack of money and so on. All of the measures I have just mentioned have played a part in the development of the crisis. That is the reality.

Yesterday the Minister, Deputy Coveney, referred on radio to the provision of a €200 million fund for infrastructure and the build of between 15,000 and 20,000 houses over three years. He then went on to say that this money would not be available until 2017, which was a bit confusing. Perhaps the Minister of State, Deputy English, would update the House on that matter. Perhaps I misunderstood what the Minister said, much of which is reported in today's newspapers. As mentioned earlier by Senator Humphreys, it feels a bit like groundhog day in Punxatawney, with the Government caught in recurring groundhog nightmares.

During the election of 2011 we were promised that the lack of social housing would be immediately addressed by the incoming Government. In 2014, the then Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, promised 35,000 social houses would be built or long-term leased and an additional 75,000 house rentals would be provided. They are the facts, which is crazy. We were also told 13,000 new builds would be delivered in 2015. These figures were off the wall. What did we get? How many new social houses were built by 2015? The answer is 75, although I may be one or two off the mark?