Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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129. To ask the Minister for Finance the extent to which he remains satisfied that first-time house buyers or the purchasers of a family home will not be priced out of the market in the future particularly in Dublin and surrounding counties; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34285/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The recovery in the economy and the pickup in employment over the last number of years has led to strong growth in the demand for housing. The lack of a sufficient supply response to meet this demand has led to the current pressures in the housing market and requires structural measures to tackle the outstanding bottlenecks which continue to inhibit supply.

This Government is committed to supporting sustainable growth in housing supply and has set a target of ensuring that 25,000 new houses are built each year by 2020. To achieve this ambitious target, the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government recently launched Rebuilding Ireland, the Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness. The Action plan represents a whole of government response to the issues in the housing market with actionable measures across five key pillars, namely Address Homelessness, Accelerate Social Housing, Build More Homes, Improve the Rental Sector, and Utilise Existing Housing. The measures set out in the Action Plan should help to stimulate supply by streamlining the planning system, removing infrastructure blockages and supporting the delivery of affordable housing.

Given the particular challenge faced by first-time buyers in accessing the housing market, I recently announced the Help-to-Buy initiative as part of Budget 2017. The Help-to-Buy initiative has been designed to complement the structural measures announced in Rebuilding Ireland by providing immediate and targeted support for first-time buyers of new homes. The targeted nature of the initiative should provide support to first time buyers in meeting their deposit requirements whilst also encouraging the construction of new housing units.