I thank the Minister of State for his remarks. It has to be said at the outset that clean water in our rivers, lakes and estuaries is essential for public health, successful industry, agriculture and, crucially, the restoration of our natural environment and the ending of significant biodiversity loss in recent years and its recovery. I commend the EPA on its latest water quality report. Once again, it has produced very objective, independent and enormously important evidence which is informing this debate. I have …

I thank the Minister of State. I have to say that this is a shoddy, tardy and entirely unacceptable way of doing business. Only last week, I was commenting that it looked like we were going to get through a Dáil term without having the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Minister lobbing in detailed, technical and complicated amendments to existing legislation at the tail end of an unrelated piece of legislation in a manner which makes it virtually impossible for those of us on this side of…

It is almost three years since the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, announced the setting up of a group to examine the issue of Celtic tiger-era building defects, and it is almost a year since he received the final report of the working group recommending the establishment of a redress scheme. Seven months ago, the Government committed in this House to the introduction of such a scheme and, more urgently, the provision of emergency funding for homeowners with building def…

I thank my colleague, Deputy Ó Laoghaire, for yet again raising what is a very important issue. I want to put on the record my support for the propositions that Carrigaline and the electoral division of Clogherhead in County Louth would be included. However, I want to disagree with both my own colleague and Deputy Nash from the outset. This is not an anomaly. As somebody who was here going through the detail of the legislation when it was introduced in very rushed and unsatisfactory form in 2016, and as somebody wh…

I move: That Dáil Éireann: expresses its admiration and appreciation to the Retained Firefighters who keep our communities safe across the country at huge personal sacrifice to themselves; recognises: — that Retained Firefighters are restricted from travelling outside a radius of as low as 2.5 kilometres of their station without first obtaining permission, which has a huge negative impact on their own and their families' lives; — the very great commitment they make to be local and available, to train approximately …

When I read the Minister's amendment to the motion I thought he was simply not going to make things better. Little did I know that when he read the text of his speech he would make things immeasurably worse. The mood with which the retained firefighters present in the Gallery walked out just as the Minister was finishing his remarks speaks volumes. There is a fundamental flaw at the heart of the Minister’s proposition. The WRC cannot resolve this dispute because for it to make progress on any of the issues that hav…

I thank Deputy O'Callaghan and the Social Democrats for tabling this important motion. The more I listen to the Minister of State, the more I am of the view that it is just not possible to take the Government seriously when it comes to housing. If there was ever a definition of Orwellian doublespeak, it is coming to the House today and telling us that he believes in home ownership while at the same time introducing and implementing policies that make it increasingly difficult for ever greater numbers of people to o…

He has to ask himself why it is so difficult to own a home. The reason is the policies the Government and its predecessors have introduced have pushed up house prices. Today, house prices are higher than they have ever been in the history of the State. Let us consider those policies. The Minister of State's predecessor, Michael Noonan, introduced egregious tax reliefs for institutional investors that incentivised speculative investment, which pushed up land prices and increased development costs and the cost of buy…

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this very important discussion. Like my colleague, Deputy Brady, I want to start by saying clearly that protesting outside the place where somebody lives is wrong, whether it is somebody's home, a reception centre or a tent on the street. There is simply no justification under any circumstances for such activities. Blockading people going to where they live or work is also wrong. Like all of the Deputies who have spoken so far, I have been appalled by recent actions. The stoppi…

Could the Minister set out for the House the number of affordable homes that he is hoping to deliver, this year and next year, specifically under the affordable housing fund, the cost rental equity loan, Project Tosaigh and LDA delivery?

Although all very interesting, it does not answer the simple question that I asked. Here is the problem. Over the last number of years, under the previous Government's plan and the Minister's plan, we know the target for social housing delivery each year. In fact, not only do we know the target for social housing delivery, but it is broken down by local authority and by delivery stream - acquisition, new build and long-term leasing. Since Deputy Darragh O'Brien became Minister, not only Opposition but his own Gover…

Absolutely.

This year?

The Minister has answer a quarter of the question I asked. Maybe, in his final response, I will get the other three quarters. The question is simple and I am not trying to catch the Minister out. The Minister has told us - this is the first time I have this information - that he is hoping to get 1,200 affordable purchase units from the affordable housing fund. How many is the Minister targeting this year through the cost rental equity loan with the AHBs, how many does the Minister expect, in his conversations with …

How many?

Does the Minister have a target for this year? It is a fair question.

Are those 200 included in the 1,200?

It is a genuine question. I am not interrupting the Minister.

Are the 200 local authority cost rental included in the 1,200?

Given that I asked the Minister the question today, surely the Minister can give me the answer today.