Anthony Lawlor (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are good landlords out there. The Senator should not collectively put them all together. There are some bad tenants out there. The Senator never identified those, the ones who break up houses, who cause disruption in housing estates. There are bad tenants out there too.

I have seen how after the crash no houses were built and we are now trying to play catch-up. We need 25,000 units each year. We missed about seven years and that is what we are trying to get back to. I have some queries for the Minister of State. There are 551 social housing bodies on the Department's list. Do we need all those? The Irish Council of Social Housing has 300 members. Do we need all those? It seems there are many bodies trying to build houses, some are voluntary and some are professional. Do we need all those to deliver that? There are so many charity organisations in this country it is starting to become a bit of a joke. All those bodies have CEOs on high salaries. Some are very good at delivering but is there a need for 551 of these?

The help-to-buy scheme has been great. We need to keep it going. It is not in the Minister of State's remit but I ask him to do whatever he can to encourage the Department of Finance to keep it going as it is so important. It is so important for the first-time buyer, particularly those who cannot afford to put together the deposit, but it is also important for builders who see it as an assist to help people buy houses.

The Urban Regeneration and Housing Act 2015 allowed developers in one administration area who might have five or six sites to put all their social housing into one site. Will the Minister of State examine that? I have seen how in Kildare there is dumping of social housing. The purpose of the Bill was to create more integration but now there is 50%, 60% or 70% social housing and the rest is people who would have purchased their house. It does not seem fair. The purpose of the legislation was to increase integration in various estates. I do not think that when the legislation was brought forward that was the intention. Senator Humphreys was in that Department and might also be able to help answer that issue.I go into new houses all the time at the moment and one of the things that strikes me is we are building houses that are so warm and efficient that the effects it may have, from a health perspective, scare me. There are no draughts in these houses and we need them to build some sort of immunity against flu and colds and things like that. I am looking at new houses that are vacuums without chimneys. There is nothing that would have been in older-type houses and that worries me.

There are also increased costs associated with houses and that is sometimes making it unaffordable for people to build a house.

I have seen the position we have been in and the one we have now come to. We have made considerable progress over the past five or six years. People seem to forget that we did not have money for a number of years. Some €6 billion is being made available to build houses and that is more than has ever been allocated in the history of the State. People who say we are not investing enough money in housing should understand where we have come from, where we are now and where we are going. There is a plan. There was no plan during the recession and the economy collapsed completely. It is difficult to turn a large ship but this ship is now moving. We are building houses. It takes time, and I appreciate that, but this is the biggest investment in social housing in the history of the State. I congratulate the Minister and the Government on that.