At what price?

At what price?

They are not affordable.

€400,000 for a family home.

An affordable housing crisis, created by you.

We are against unaffordability for working people.

Fleecing people.

The Taoiseach is not living in the real world.

As the Minister knows, since 2017 there has been a net loss of 20,000 rental tenancies from the private rental sector. That equates to about 7,000 a year up to 2020. We do not have data from the Residential Tenancies Board for last year but the expectation is that the rate will continue. Given this loss of rental properties is one of the many factors contributing to the crisis in the private rental sector and is driving the recent upsurge in homelessness, will the Minister outline his plan to stop this disorderly e…

None of what the Minister said addressed the core question I asked. What is the plan to deal with the disorderly exit of semi-professional and accidental landlords from the market, something that has been in train for three years and will more than likely continue for four years? The argument that supply will tackle the problem simply does not add up. The Government's housing plan promises 6,500 new private rental homes, a target that will probably be reached around 2025 or 2026. However, we are losing 7,000 units …

What that shows is that the Minister has no plan and landlords will continue to sell up.

I have repeatedly called for four key policies. The Minister knows them but I will repeat them again. The first is to end the prohibition on local authorities buying properties with housing assistance payment, HAP, or rental accommodation scheme, RAS, tenants in situ when the landlord is selling. Many landlords who are leaving the market would be delighted for the local authority to purchase the property but the Government will not allow local authorities to purchase them with a sitting tenant. That is driving fami…

As the Minister is aware, his housing plan has a range of new measures and specifically for the delivery of social and affordable housing. One concern many of us have is that, certainly in the early years of this plan, there will be an increased reliance on turnkey affordable purchases of private sector developments. Does the Minister share this concern? If not, can he give us the reasons why he does not believe this is going to be a feature, especially this year and next year?

I understand the theory. The problem is that it is going to run into some significant problems in practice, particularly when we look at the pipeline. As the Minister is aware, 2020 is the last year for which we have figures, and half of all new-build social homes were turnkey units delivered by local authorities and approved housing bodies. The other half was partly Part Vs and partly direct builds. Given the pipeline in the social housing sector, it is difficult to see how that is going to ramp up in respect of d…

Based on what the Cabinet announced today, unfortunately, not only will half those homes be unaffordable private units but, equally, the 22% of homes that are so-called affordable will also be way beyond the reach of ordinary people. What we want are affordable public homes on public land. In fact, the all-in cost of the affordable purchase in this regard, based on Cabinet information provided today, when the purchase cost and the affordable housing fund repayment is added in, is between €344,000 for one-bed units …

It is not affordable.

They are not affordable. The Minister should be honest with people.

Not at O'Devaney Gardens and Oscar Traynor Road it is not, with the greatest of respect.

Fianna Fáil was in government during all of that period and refused to fund it. It sat on its hands, starved our local authorities of resources and would not fund the building.

The Minister is giving us a shocking distortion of the truth.