Micheál Martin

Actually, no. People are saying the VAT cut will have an impact. The response from the market is quite clear that it is a significant step in narrowing the viability gap to get more apartments built. We gave the Land Development Agency its legislative underpinning-----

-----and will further add to its role. We have capitalised the LDA very significantly. If you look at the mortgage drawdowns, for example, the percentage increase in first-time buyer mortgage drawdowns has increased significantly from about 23% in 2015 to about 35% today. We are making progress but affordability continues to be an issue. We have a growing population. If we keep on opposing everyth…

That is what the Deputy is doing, come off it. If we are to hang around, no disrespect to anybody, waiting for this and that institute to get around to building houses, we will be waiting a long time. There has been too much of that in this country.

We need to build 50,000 to 60,000 per annum. We will not get there with Labour's policies.

The Government has set a target of 300,000 houses over the lifetime of this plan.

I am sorry, the Deputy has had her say. I say this respectfully to the Deputy. She uses language about a "radical reset of housing policy". What in the name of God does it mean? The Deputy has never put any flesh on the bone of anything she has ever proposed. She is bereft of policy. What is the radical reset? Spell it out.

All I ever get from Deputy Cairns's party is, "We're against this, we're against that, we're opposing that and we're doing that", for the past number of years.

It does not have a radical policy. It is nice language. It appeals to those who, without question, are under pressure, but there is no substance or depth to it.

Absolutely none. By the way, under Housing for All, we exceeded our targets - an inconvenient truth for the Opposition. The problem was people then said the targets were not high enough.

The bottom line is the population is growing exponentially and has grown. The pressures are enormous. We need to build at scale and at pace. The housing plan has substance in it in terms of proposals to do that. We did not wait for it. We decided straight in to do, for example, the national planning framework to get more land zoned for housing. Deputy Cairns will have problems with that on the gro…

It will not build a house this year, next year or the year after.

That is about the only concrete thing I have seen coming from Deputy Cairns's party in respect of a proposal. We have provided huge amounts of State funding. We need more private sector funding, particularly in apartments in cities. We have also decided as a Government to invest huge moneys in water services, the national grid, public transport and roads to enable the construction of houses in ci…

We are zoning land.

On the scale of Ireland's ambition and the targets we have set, if you compare our housing plan targets with the United Kingdom, Germany or the Netherlands, on a per capita basis, our targets are nearly double their targets in terms of what they propose. Ours are approximately 9.3 per 1,000. The United Kingdom's is 4.5, Germany's is 4.8 and the Netherlands is 5.5. No one matches the ambition of th…

-----and when it comes to delivery, in 2024-----

In 2024, of 23 European countries, Ireland had the second highest housing supply per capita.

Therefore, in terms of targets and delivery-----

-----we are to the fore across the EU.

However, we need to do it at pace and with higher numbers. We want to get to 50,000. Genuinely-----

I see nothing in the Social Democrats' presentation.

The savings and investments thing would take years to realise funding-----

-----which is not the immediate issue, by the way.

The funding is going in. If people could only allow housing in our country----

-----in terms of the planning process, objections, judicial reviews and the rest of it.

I do not see judicial reviews as a badge of honour, as Deputy Bacik does. I see them as a problem.