The housing crisis continues to spiral out of control. As the Tánaiste knows, families still present as homeless every single day. Almost 100,000 people are on housing lists across the State, some of them for lengthy periods.

Last December, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, launched a glossy, 90-page social housing strategy. He promised that the Government would deliver 5,384 new social houses in 2015. I want to ask the Tánaiste about those 5,384 new social houses promised for this year. Unfortunately, as with so many glossy Government documents, there was very little detail as to how these units would be delivered. The additional €210 million for social housing in budget 2015 will not cover the cost of these homes. Talk of off-balance-sheet borrowing and public private partnerships is just that - talk.

The Minister, Deputy Kelly, has not even told local authorities what their social housing budget will be for 2015. If and when he does, it will take up to 15 months before any new social housing units are designed, built and tenanted. In light of all this, can the Tánaiste outline exactly how the Government intends to deliver these 5,384 social housing units this year? Where will the money come from and what councils will benefit from them? Can the Tánaiste commit to all of these units being tenanted this year, as the glossy strategy document promises?

In the budget 2015 statement, the Government committed a significant amount of capital financing to a new housing programme, which is one of the biggest ever launched in the history of this country. The Deputy is correct in saying that it is not possible to plan, design, build, fit out and hand keys over for houses within a short period.

Anybody with experience of house building will know that. I am glad the Deputy acknowledges that implementing this extremely ambitious programme will take time.

There were several elements to the Minister's proposals for 2015. The first and most significant was to deal with the scandal that various Deputies in the House have raised from time to time, namely, the boarding up of perfectly good houses and apartments by local authorities when the tenancies were given up, particularly in the Dublin area. These houses were left to languish for up to two years, and even three in some cases, before being refurbished and handed over to new tenants. The first part of the strategy is to bring all available units up to a certain standard and hand them over to tenants, both families and individuals, who are waiting on accommodation.

The second part is to provide finance in this regard, and that is what the budget set out to do. Providing the budget finance is the core part of the strategy. The Deputy spoke as if she disapproved of assisting with the direct financing, through borrowing by the State, through off-balance-sheet borrowing. If the Deputy were to examine the facilitation of this, she might think again. In every country in Europe with a successful house-building programme, a variety of avenues are used, including local authorities, housing agencies, housing organisations and co-operatives. Financing is directly through the state, as in our case and as reflected in the Budget Statement, but it also involves borrowing from other institutions and borrowing through off-balance-sheet mechanisms. I do not believe there is any difficulty with any of that. I wonder why the Deputy sounds so disapproving with regard to obtaining additional finance to build the houses she claims she and her party are committed to building. Unless one has the finance to build the houses, one will not even get to the starting point.

The Minister has been meeting local authority representatives regularly up and down the country. If the Deputy wishes, I will get a detailed response from the Minister on all the meetings he has had. He meets the Dublin local authority officials on a weekly basis to be updated on the figures for Dublin. The Dublin managers have produced quite a detailed map, which the Deputy, as a Dublin Deputy, might have seen. It highlights where additional housing is to be provided, where sites are ready to go, and where sites are zoned and serviced. Also mapped are sites where all that work would have to be done.

Since the programme was launched, the Minister has probably done far more work than has been done by any Minister in recent years to get the greatest housing programme in the State under way and have housing delivered, from this year on, to the people on the housing list who need homes.

The Government's strategy document, launched to much fanfare before Christmas, specifically promises 5,384 new social housing units, to be delivered in 2015. I did not write the document; it is a document of the Tánaiste's Government and of a Labour Party Minister. I asked the Tánaiste to explain to us how she proposes to make good that promise and deliver the units in 2015. If I heard her correctly, she is conceding the point that she has not a chance of delivering the 5,384 new social housing units.

No.

She commended me on commending her, and then she echoed my point that housing units cannot be delivered overnight. She made the promise to provide 5,384 new social housing units in 2015 but she is not going to deliver them, yet the promise was in her document. She might explain this to us.

Irrespective of the meetings the Minister might have had throughout the country, the fact remains that local authorities have not been given their budgetary allocation for social housing for 2015. Riddle me this: the Tánaiste proclaims in her glossy document, and her press releases reiterate, her apparent concern over the housing crisis and for people who need a roof over their heads, yet when it comes to setting out the nuts and bolts of how the homes will actually be delivered, she draws a blank. Is the Tánaiste delivering the 5,384 social housing units? Have I misunderstood her? I understand she is now resiling from that promise.

The Deputy is fantasising.

If that is the case, it is a disgrace. When will local authority budgets be allocated? Does she know? Does she care? I do not need her to run off and ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, to release another press statement. It is appropriate that she answer specific questions when they are put to her. I am concerned about the social housing units. Will the Tánaiste please answer my question on them?

Nobody cares but Deputy McDonald. It is insulting.

We would not have made cutbacks of €1.2 billion from 2008 until now.

Here comes the lecture.

Let me repeat for the Deputy the answer I just gave her. I said that in the budget, which was the first part of implementing the strategy, the Government made the largest allocation of Government funding for capital and current purposes to provide families with homes. That is step one. Step two is actually to provide that finance. The Deputy, but not I, quibbled that all the finance was not being provided entirely directly from Government sources and that some was to be off-balance sheet. I suggest she go back to the Sinn Féin advisers and check how one actually builds a housing programme.

Where are the houses?

One must put the finance in place and then one must do the planning.

And keep the promise to provide 5,384 units.

The Deputy seems slightly irritated over the fact that the Minister has met the county managers-----

Not at all.

-----and that he meets them on a weekly basis. That is to the Minister's credit. The Deputy asked what part of the country the problem is in.

I did not ask that; I did ask about the 5,384 units.

The problem is at its most acute in the Dublin area, as she might have known having the honour to represent a Dublin constituency, because the population in the Dublin area is growing because there is so much employment being created there.

So the Tánaiste is not going to answer. Will we see the units in 2015?

I also pointed out to the Deputy that in the Dublin local authority areas, and in those in Cork, Galway and Limerick to a lesser extent, there are properties that were closed up when the tenancies were given up.

Because the Government cut the budget. There was a cut of €1.2 billion from 2008 to now. That is why the local authority houses were boarded up in the first place.

We have funded them so they can be opened up.

There was a cut of €1.2 billion.

Deputy Ellis should note this is Leaders' Questions.

Deputy Ellis should realise we have given them that funding.

After she starved them in the first place.

I hope he instructs his party members on local authorities around the country to enter into dialogue with their managers to see that the latter, who are responsible for opening up the closed houses and apartments, actually do so.

Five thousand, three hundred and eighty four social housing units.

That is the third step. The Deputy should take it from me that we will be delivering on this commitment.

In 2015?

We will be delivering on the largest housing programme in the recent history-----

The Minister should get out her shovel.

-----of this State. I am glad to do that.

Hear, hear.