Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are doing that. That is why we are trying to build more homes. As already stated, the fundamental reason we have house price inflation at these levels is that we are not building enough homes. We need to build more homes and we need to do it more quickly. That is the answer to many of the challenges as regards affordability at the moment. We need to build more homes and, within that, have local authorities and State-led schemes that play a role in getting the prices of those homes down. That is what we are doing. We accept that for many people we are not making progress quickly enough on an issue that matters so much to them but we do not have a housing policy that is led by the market. We have a housing policy that acknowledges within it that the market has a role to play. Those are two very different things.