Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ó Broin. Affordable housing delivery for people to purchase and rent is an absolute priority of my mine and of this Government. We are making real progress there. As the Deputy knows, Housing for All sets out a range of actions necessary to increase the supply of housing output across the board but also, really importantly, sets forward a roadmap and plan to deliver 54,000 affordable homes by local authorities, approved housing bodies, the Land Development Agency and through the first home scheme, which is a groundbreaking scheme we brought forward. That is a strategic partnership between the State and the retail banks.

Through the implementation of Housing for All and the injection of record levels of investment with more than €5 billion available this year for the delivery of social and affordable housing in 2024, which is the highest level of housing investment in the history of the State, we are ramping up the social and affordable housing supply.

In 2023, more than 4,000 affordable housing supports have been delivered via our delivery partners, an output which has more than doubled from the previous year. It represents an increase of nearly 130% on 2022 activity. That highlights really significant progress to date. It is slightly below target but when this Government came in, there were no affordable homes being delivered. There had been none delivered for effectively a generation. Last year, there were more than 4,000.

As the Deputy knows, data for affordable housing delivery is published on my Department's website up to quarter 4 of 2023. It is currently being verified for quarter 1, which I expect my Department will be in a position to report on shortly. We have a securely laid foundation that will allow us to continue to ramp up the delivery this year and into next as the pipeline of affordable housing delivery is very strong.

In addition, I have asked my Department to prepare a revised affordable housing strategy to take account of the new housing targets later this year and bring forward additional affordable delivery as quickly as possible.

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