More than 400.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 8 and 44 together. On the Croí Cónaithe initiative, for the record there are nearly 500 applicants in already and many of them are processed. I am not sure what date that question response went up to. I welcome the Deputy's question. As the Deputy will be aware, Deputy Bruton has asked a similar question. Housing for All, which is the Government's plan, has been debated in the House and people will be aware of it. It is to increase the supply of housing to an average of 33,000 per a…

I have been in all of the 31 local authority areas throughout the country. Let us not catastrophise this with regard to supply. The Deputy cannot just take one figure and say everything is going in a downward trajectory. It is not. We are aware of the challenges which, by the way, are not unique to Ireland. There are the rising cost of funding and inflationary pressures. We saw positive news yesterday on eurozone inflation and Ireland's inflation rate is below this. This is because we have a strong and robust econo…

It was not a script.

Not true.

My response to Deputy Tóibín was not scripted. It is not the same script over the past ten years.

I am responding to what you said. I fully respect the Deputy's right have a point of view. There are issues in Ireland and throughout Europe and there is no question about this. In Deputy Tóibín's home town of Navan how many homes are being built at present and how many homes are being planned? Look at what is happening in Meath West and throughout the country. Of course there are challenges to make sure we have small and medium builders involved in housing. I see this throughout the country. It is happening. It is…

The Minister, Deputy Harris, has done an excellent job on apprenticeships. Thankfully we are seeing a substantial increase in the number of people registering for apprenticeships. We need to value trades and we need to value the work. We had changes last year whereby apprenticeships are now alongside the CAO and CAS offers. Deputy O'Dowd is right. We need to keep increasing the number of young women and men coming into the construction sector and learning trades to deliver the infrastructure that we need. They are …

I propose to take Questions Nos. 11 and 19 together. Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta as an cheist, which is a very important one. We need to look at how we can utilise modern methods of construction, including off-site construction and modular builds, to ramp up the supply of housing. We clearly set out that objective in pathway 5 under the Government's Housing for All plan. The development of modern methods of construction, MMC, will improve productivity in construction and increase efficiency in residential cons…

Hear, hear.

B'fhéidir nach raibh an Teachta ag éisteacht le mo fhreagra ar an gceist sin. I answered it very clearly. We have set targets. We are using modern methods of construction. I suggest the Deputy be careful not to blur the lines, if I may. The emergency response to provide safe harbour to our friends from Ukraine, as Deputy O'Dowd has eloquently said, is separate to what we are doing on delivery of Housing for All. It is in addition to Housing for All. Some of the accommodation we will provide on a temporary or medium…

Níl mé críochnaithe fós. Let us be very clear that the targets with regard to additional delivery on modern methods of construction are very clearly set out and we will manage that centrally. This is different. There is a real opportunity to further ramp up the delivery of social and affordable homes, which I know the Deputy is asking for, but that is a separate response under the Housing for All plan. The emergency response with regard to our friends from Ukraine will continue. We will have a consultation but some…

We will deliver more new-build social homes in 2022 than we have done in decades. Approximately 10,500 social homes will be delivered for people who are on the social housing list. Some of the sheltered response we have for our friends from Ukraine are not permanent homes, such as the refurbished properties. I know the Deputy is not suggesting we would use that same response for people on the social housing list-----

No, they have not.

What I am saying is that we very clearly set out under Housing for All what our social housing targets are. What I am looking to do next year is to further accelerate that delivery through the use of off-site and modular construction. I have already mentioned in my response to the Deputy that we have provided €100 million with regard to pay-down debt for local authorities, not just to pay it down. That is the legacy debt on lands because of land purchase. It is on the basis that one starts the delivery on those sit…

What part of my answer does the Deputy not understand? I have just said for the past few minutes that, of course, we are using modern methods of construction and modular construction. We are already doing that but we will be using additional good-quality, off-site construction builds under modern methods of construction, next year, in the programme we have set and has been debated in this Dáil and which we have been very public about, to ramp up the further delivery of social housing. It has nothing to do with the …

Let us not blur the lines.

Tá ár gcuid oibre beagnach críochnaithe.

Read the report.

That is the truth.