The Opposition is enjoying it a bit for its own electoral purposes. However, I want to make this point-----

The Deputy cannot be serious. He talks about it costing our democracy. Eight minutes on a Tuesday and our democracy is gone.

Come on; it is farcical. However, in a more serious vein-----

What is really behind this, and it is very clear, is that the Opposition-----

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 11, inclusive, together. The National Emergency Coordination Group is the central Government platform established as part of the response to a threatened or ongoing national-level emergency under the strategic emergency management framework.

Ní aontaím in aon chor leis an Teachta as ucht an méid a dúirt sí. Níl aon amhras ach gurb é an t-ábhar is tábhachtaí agus is práinní sa tír seo ná cúrsaí tithíochta. An phríomhaidhm atá againn mar Rialtas ná níos mó tithe a chruthú agus é sin a dhéanamh chomh tapa agus is féidir linn. Is é sin bun agus barr pholasaithe an Rialtais. In the first instance, housing is the number one issue in this country. I made the following comment in the Oval Office in the White House. I said: "The number one issue in Ireland is h…

-----and discuss those issues with them. On the housing issue, if I could comment for a moment, there were several projections throughout 2024 in respect of completions. We have exceeded targets, particularly in 2022 and 2023. We exceeded Central Bank targets and other targets that suggested we would come in lower. That is the position. The first quarter of the following year is when the statistics come in. There are a variety of publications and data was published in September by the Central Bank and others, but t…

I think that is pathetic. The Deputy accuses me of spoofing? Get off the stage. No one was sniggering at any housing problem. The Deputy knows that.

It is pathetic - the protestation and the Deputy's attempt to exploit that particular moment, completely oblivious and refusing to reference the actual substance of what I said in terms of housing being the number one priority in Ireland. The Deputy can criticise our policies as a Government but she should not try to say she has a monopoly of concern or empathy on the housing question. Everybody in this House knows it through our own communities and the people we represent that this is the number one issue. No one …

-----on many an occasion for Sinn Féin, but when it comes to putting the party fist as opposed to the country first, Sinn Féin will always put the party first.

That is why Deputy McDonald did not go to the US-----

On spurious grounds, she did not go to the US.

No one is convinced-----

-----about your false assertions.

I am always open to new ideas, to concrete and substantive ideas. I was not particularly impressed with what the Labour Party put forward in the general election campaign. Establishing a new national building agency would have only delayed things. It would take years to establish and it is a kind of rowing the clock back to earlier eras and to models that simply would not work now in terms of where we are with regard to house construction models, builders and so on. I do not see people in the construction sector fl…

There was no clear blueprint, no paper in respect of how this agency was going to be established.

If the Deputy has other ideas, that is fine, but they have to be focused on getting more houses built and getting them built faster, which I have said consistently over the last while. From about 2020 onwards about 130,000 new homes were built, which is more than anything in the previous decade or more. Momentum did switch. There was a turn and a significant shift in momentum in terms of house construction but given the population growth in this country, which has been quite significant over the last decade or a ha…

Two and a bit months-----

It is two months in office, despite Deputies' best efforts. An extra €800 million on top of the outturn last year has been allocated to housing. There is €450 million for 3,000 new homes and also funding to fund substantial numbers of tenant in situ homes under that particular programme. The State's investment is enormous relative to historic norms in respect of housing in this country. That is why I am saying that parallel with that, there simply has to be a greater degree of private sector investment. If we look …

Obviously the county councils and the city councils will then have to adopt and change their plans to allow for more zoning to allow more houses to be constructed.