Yes we can and we will.

I presume we agree that cost rental is one of the main parts of the solution - one of the main parts of ramping up the numbers. The Land Development Agency is perfectly suited and is the right agency to deliver that sort of expansion. There will be no shortage of funding and ambition. It takes time and is not easy with the cost of building having gone up. We can bring it down by using the Land Development Agency on public land as well as the private sector. We need so many different parts of the solution and that i…

Today.

Nobody disagrees about the scale and need for urgency but having increased delivery last year beyond the target, I would like to see us do the same every year of this Government's tenure and into the tenure of the next Government because the Housing for All strategy is the correct way to address the problem.

That analysis is for the years to 2050. Ours is to 2030.

We absolutely need to go further because there are more people coming into our country and the likely change in household characteristics means that we should err on the side of more. Deputy Doherty says we are planning to fail. That is not true. One of the biggest problems is people objecting to planning.

One of the biggest problems is that one cannot get projects delivered quickly because every time we submit applications, particularly in areas closer to the centre where the density is slightly higher, then there are objections in the planning system.

They come from councillors right across the country in many instances because it is not always popular, it is not always the easy answer and people do not necessarily always want change when it comes to their own local areas.

Regarding how we speed things up, lack of finance will not be an issue for the State. The State may have to do more because with the high interest rates, the private sector will not be able to do as much.

The delivery requires support at council level right across the country-----

-----for the planning urgency we need to deliver the housing. No party in this House can point fingers at anyone else about this.

The licensing system is no longer in disarray.

The Minister of State, Senator Pippa Hackett, has changed that and turned it round.

Deputy Bacik said there is not a programme. There is a programme.

It is specific, real and fully funded.

It is a €1.3 billion funding mechanism which fundamentally-----

If I can be heard, Ceann Comhairle and Deputy Sherlock.

I need to correct Deputy Bacik. What she said, that there is not a programme, is not true. There is a specific programme.

It was only introduced in November and it is transformative. It will not just be the State which steps up on this.

Farmers right across the country, under that new programme, will have a critical role. There is a range of new, closer-to-nature agroforestry solutions which we have not delivered in the last 90 years of forestation.