Michael D'Arcy (Wexford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I address the question of the Government doing more. I have to disagree with the Senator because the Government is fully committed to achieving the objective of building more social and affordable homes, as is obvious from the nearly 26,000 social units delivered in 2017, which represented a significant increase on the numbers delivered in previous years. Further funds have also been provided in the budget for 2019 when €2.4 billion will be invested, more than in any other year. That is the pot for the provision of social and affordable housing in 2019. There is a strong and growing social housing pipeline in place, as evidenced by the quarter two 2018 construction status report. Since the end of 2016, the numbers of schemes and homes included in the programme have doubled. The level of activity on site has also increased significantly, with work on 1,074 homes ongoing on-site in quarter two of this year alone.

On affordable housing, there is a multistrand targeted approach being pursued in the counties most affected by the issue. The measures are targeted at households earning a maximum of €50,000 for a single applicant and €75,000 for double applicants. Significantly, in budget 2019 the Government has trebled to €310 million the funding available in the serviced sites fund for key facility infrastructure on local authority sites to support the provision of affordable homes to purchase or rent.

Much has been done, including the establishment of the Land Development Agency. I know that it is easy to say the Government is not doing enough, but that is not a fair criticism because we are doing a lot. If the Senator had said we were not doing enough quickly enough, that would probably have been more fair, but we tend to not receive fair criticism when it comes to housing. I know that the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, is doing a huge amount of work in what is a difficult area. People forget that the State had closed down the residential construction sector. It stopped operating five years ago because there was a massive oversupply. In this Chamber Deputies were talking about knocking down estates. Does Senator Wilson remember that? We were going to knock down estates because nobody wanted houses.