I move: "That the Bill be taken in Private Members' time."

Is the Minister in a position to tell us the number of affordable homes delivered through the three principal public housing affordable schemes set up by his Department last year before the housing fund cost-rental equity loan and the Land Development Agency's Project Tosaigh?

The housing plan has an aggregate target for affordable homes for last year of 4,000 units, as the Minister knows. At no stage has the Minister provided Deputies with a breakdown of how many of those will be through affordable housing fund purchase, the cost-rental equity loan by AHBs, Project Tosaigh or, indeed, the very controversial shared equity loan.

As the Minister knows, the shared equity loan homes are not affordable. They are giving people an additional layer of debt but I do not want to have that debate today. What I want to know is what was delivered with the funding provided by the Minister to local authorities and AHBs? We know from the LDA’s website that Project Tosaigh delivered only 48 cost-rental homes last year. As of October only 300 cost-rental homes had been delivered by AHBs but that included the 35 delivered the previous year. On the basis of …

My concern is twofold. With respect to the affordable housing fund purchases, in my own constituency homes were effectively completed midway through the year but because of disputes over legal contracts, they have not yet been purchased. We expect them to be purchased by February. That means those homes were not ready for occupation. In the Minister’s constituency, he launched affordable purchase homes in December. However, as at the start of January, those homes were not actually complete. Fingal County Council co…

I ask the Minister to give us an update on the regulations underpinning the enhanced defective block remediation scheme for homeowners in Donegal, Mayo, Clare and Limerick and an estimated date for when this new scheme will be open for homeowners in Donegal and Mayo and also for those in Clare, Limerick and other counties.

I thank the Minister for his reply. My understanding is that of the four local authorities which received the draft regulations at the end of last year, the one in Donegal is refusing to give the Minister’s Department a formal comment because it is not allowed to discuss the regulations with its elected members. I welcome the fact the Minister has asked the SCSI to update the unit-square metre cost but I understand that for Mayo and Donegal, it will not be completed until the end of February, and for County Clare, …

Is that for defective blocks?

The Minister, I suppose, is right that people can continue to apply but, as we know, there is a very significant number of people, particularly in Donegal, who are not able to get through stage 1. Part of that is because of the restrictions on IS 465. From what our committee was told, it is unlikely completion of the review or changes to the scheme, in respect of the National Standards Authority of Ireland's work, will be completed this year. That means many people who have already applied to the scheme will not be…

That is except for those who are stalled, that is, the 500 who are stalled at stage 1.

It is just shy of 500.

The Land Development Agency cannot get these lands. It does not have the power to get these lands.

That is statistically not true. There are 90,000-----

The Minister is deflecting and distracting from his own failure.

The Government is not meeting its targets.

Agreed.

Planning is not the problem. Lack of Government delivery is the problem.

It does. We are fully compliant with the rules.

I thank the Minister for his remarks. I extend my thanks and those of my party to the members of the working group, including the departmental officials in their advisory capacity. The report is significant. It will be seen as significant as the original report on pyrite and defective blocks in giving us a solid grounding for the scheme, which we all hope comes soon. I acknowledge three organisations. The Apartment Owners Network represents homeowners campaigning on this and many other issues with regard to reform …

I, too, extend very warm Christmas greetings to both my colleagues in opposition and in government, but especially to the staff who ensure this building and the work we do in it functions as smoothly as it does. In that, I include all of the official Oireachtas staff, the clerks, the ushers, and let us not forget the catering staff, the cleaners and, in particular at this time of the year, the long-suffering Bills Office staff who have to deal with enormous volumes of legislation at the last minute, and do so with …