Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

We really need to define open market dwelling. I share Senator Cummins's sentiments about housing but we must also have value for money and we cannot keep talking about targets. On the news last night, a reference was made to Rebuilding Ireland, a term we do not hear very much in this House. One of the parties has been in government for ten years. At one point, Rebuilding Ireland was in the news every evening and we were talking about targets but suddenly nobody is talking about Rebuilding Ireland.

Rebuilding Ireland is still the policy of the Government. That is the bottom line. That is what officials in the Department tell me. Rebuilding Ireland is Government policy. I put a question to the Department about it and asked a number of my colleagues to raise it in various debates in the other House. The Minister is nodding his head. If it is not Government policy, could he enlighten me in that regard because I would like to know?

The Minister has a policy and a great plan is coming down the tracks but it is not yet here. That is what we are talking about. Will the Minister define the open market dwelling aspect of it? Let us build houses but let us have value for money. If we are going to have targets for delivery, we need to empower local authorities, so let us end all the talk about empowering them. Each of them is different and has a different way of doing business. That is just the way the local authorities are structured. If we are going to have targets, we will have to measure and enforce them. Anybody who takes on targets and Government funding and supports must deliver.That, of course, ties in with what we said earlier about the opportunity, in both Houses of the Oireachtas, to analyse matters every year and see how we are progressing.