Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail)

This morning, I welcome the publication of the updated housing plan from the Government. The Leas-Chathaoirleach will have to give me a moment. I took the stairs two steps at a time; I will be honest. I want to do justice to the plan. My grandfather was an undertaker, and a big believer that the man who made time made plenty of it. This is an important plan, so we need to give it a minute or two. When the previous Government took on the housing challenge, it made a serious commitment to have the State invest in the provision of homes, so that everyone would have a home. Between 2021 and this year, Housing for All delivered 137,000 new-build homes.

Today, we have Delivering Homes, Building Communities. This builds on the work of the previous Government. It reinstates, reaffirms and reinvests in the State's commitment to eliminate homelessness by 2030. It supports first-time buyers by increasing the provision of social and affordable homes and private homes - all types of homes. It is an ambitious plan. It will deliver on ending homelessness by 2030. It will expand the Housing First programme. It will increase the provision of emergency accommodation, and it will focus on child and family homelessness as a priority.

For first-time buyers, there will be 90,000 affordable housing supports. There will be a strengthening of the help-to-buy supports, which have helped more than 50,000 first-time buyers buy their own home. It is going to strengthen and expand the vacant and derelict properties grants and the affordable purchase schemes.

For disabled people, there will be special needs housing delivery through the approved housing bodies. There will be funding for adapted housing units and there will be an integration of disability housing needs into local authority housing plans. This is critically important for the disabled community. There will also be support for community-based independent living models.

For Travellers, there will be dedicated Traveller accommodation projects. Local authorities will be strengthened to deliver culturally appropriate housing and there will be specific funding streams for Traveller community safety and housing initiatives.

For renters, which is really important, there is a significant increase in funding for social housing. The cost-rental housing model, which we introduced under legislation in the previous Oireachtas, will be expanded and there will be increased cost-rental housing. There will be stronger tenant protections. There will be increased supply of long-term secure affordable rental homes and there will be increased security of tenure.

This is all important work the Government is doing for the State and for everyone who needs a home. Overall, the targets are to deliver 300,000 homes by 2030, 72,000 of which will be social homes and 90,000 affordable. That means more than half of the homes that will be built will be social and affordable. People listening to the announcement today can take confidence from the fact that over the four years of the previous Oireachtas, we changed the policy, the funding and legislation and 137,000 new homes were delivered, and now 300,000 homes will be delivered under this plan. I congratulate everybody who has worked on the plan, but most importantly, I encourage everybody who will use the plan, to actually deliver homes and end homelessness.