The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, has today re-announced, as he is fond of doing, that the Government is to deliver 1,000 new social housing units.

That would be a very welcome development if it were true. However, a recent report by the Simon Community shows that 95% of rental properties cannot be afforded by citizens dependent on State rental supports. We have been listening to the same announcements from the Taoiseach, the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, and others for years. The Government promised that a minimum of 1,000 new social houses would be built in 2015. While that would have been welcome, even though it is a paltry number, relatively speaking, given the gravity and depth of the housing crisis, the target is not going to be met. Instead, the latest figures provided by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government show that a mere 28 local authority houses were constructed in the first nine months of 2015. That is 28 homes when children are growing up in hotel rooms, more than 5,000 citizens are in homeless accommodation, including 600 children, and more than 100,000 applicants are on waiting lists for local authority housing, including 5,000 in my constituency. Let us be straight about this. It is the policy of the Government not to build social and affordable housing. The Government's record is clear. Social housing construction has declined by 1,600% since 2011, its first year in office. Nevertheless, it could find €64 billion to pump into banks. Why does the Taoiseach not explain as he leaves office why he did not spend even a fraction of these billions to construct the homes that are so badly needed by citizens?

Deputy Adams has been on before about raising the rent supplement on private accommodation. I have said to him on many occasions that the challenge here is to deal with the supply of houses. There are not enough houses available for the people who need them. To tinker around with the edges of that will not do anything to increase supply for people who badly need those houses.

It would get people out of hotels in the short term.

Deputy Adams knows that. The Government has responded in a number of ways as I have pointed out to the Deputy before, including by providing proper accommodation for people in units that were neglected, closed up or uninhabitable, significant numbers of which have been brought back into use and allocated to families. The social housing strategy for 2020 sets out clear and measurable targets to increase the supply of social housing to meet the housing needs of all householders on the social housing list. The intention and the objective is to deliver 110,000 units through current and capital funding streams between now and 2020 to 2021. In regard to putting together a strong house building programme, the Government has put €3 billion of taxpayers' money towards the social housing strategy out to 2021. In 2015, 13,000 units were delivered across all the social housing programmes, representing an 86% increase on the 7,000 units delivered in 2014. That is because of the total collapse of the construction sector over a number of years, of which Deputy Adams is very well aware. The target for this year is to deliver 17,000 units.

In the period 2011 to 2014, 26,000 new social housing units were delivered for families and people who needed them. The Deputy is aware of the housing assistance programme and the tenancy supplementary scheme, which has helped another 10,000 people to stay in the houses they have been in. The Government has sanctioned 400 additional local authority posts to help build capacity in order that local authorities can get back to building houses. In that sense, we have also introduced a new one-stage approval process for projects up to €2 million in value involving up to 15 new houses. Ordinarily, new housing construction projects go through a very extensive multi-stage approval process. This new opportunity allows for a much faster delivery between concept and construction. The Government has also worked closely with the representative bodies for the approved housing bodies sector, the Irish Council for Social Housing, the National Association of Building Co-Operatives, SHS oversight and so on. We have also approved the first bundle of public private partnership projects to deliver 500 units at six sites in the greater Dublin area. These are all elements of the challenge. There are quite a number of sites nationally at which work is going on at this very moment to deliver 926 social housing units, some of them in Deputy Adams's own constituency. I see from the list that most counties and areas are covered and construction is actually under way now. We need to get back to a point where local authorities use direct build methods to build these houses. The Government has provided them with the money, targets and facilities to get on and do that. I hope that will build up very strongly during the course of 2016.

My question was about building. The fact is that in the first nine months of 2015, only 28 local authority houses were built. Sin é. That is the truth of it. The buzzword or weasel word the Taoiseach used was "delivery". He spoke about delivering. He said there was a need to build houses by 2020 and 2021 while on his watch now tens of thousands of families are in need of a home. As we sit here in the Chamber, there are children spending their formative years in homeless accommodation. They need social housing, not the Minister, Deputy Kelly, polishing his legacy at yet another press conference. They do not need serial announcements. The Government is all about the optics. It is all about spin and talking tough. The Taoiseach will remember his posturing at the meeting with the insurance industry in the aftermath of the recent flooding. He said he wanted them back within a week with what they were going to do, but those families still do not have insurance. That meeting was all about spin. There was no delivery.

A question, please.

The scale of the Government's failure to deliver on this and other issues is stark. Instead of announcing the same plans over and over again, the Government must acknowledge that there has been a decline in the construction of social housing in every consecutive year since it has been in office. That is chaos upon chaos for the families involved. There are more than 100,000 applicants, which is more than would fill Croke Park, waiting for the Taoiseach's Government to provide them with homes. Is that what the Taoiseach means by stability?

I reject the Deputy's assertion that calling together the major insurance companies was either posturing or spin.

Where is the report?

I have already given the Deputy the figures in respect of the Government's response to put money on the table, to give directions and targets to every local authority and to say "Get on with it". We have already pointed out that more than 2,000-----

Pathetic. You are pathetic. How many houses have been built?

Please, let us hear the answer.

I thank Deputy Mac Lochlainn.

It is the same language: "Get on with it".

Maybe they have a different way in Donegal. The position is that 2,000 houses and apartment units that were closed up and uninhabitable have been handed over recently to families and people who are now off the housing list. The housing assistance programme has helped 6,000, and 5,800 have been helped directly to stay in their accommodation by virtue of increasing the rent subsidy for them on an individual basis through the Department of Social Protection. Perhaps Deputy Adams does not want to recognise that.

So there is no crisis.

The fact is the Government has set out €3 billion in its programme for social housing directly between here and 2021-----

That is no use to people now.

-----and has expedited the opportunity for local authority projects of fewer than 15 houses with a faster process to get to construction.

How many houses were built last year?

That is in everybody's interest.

As was said before, it is not a situation where one wants to condone children living in hotel accommodation or in bed and breakfasts, but the fact of the matter is that the entire construction sector had collapsed completely and we were dealing with 7,000 units a year for a country that would need 20,000 to 25,000.

Five years now.

I am glad to say that it is coming back very strongly at the moment. Hopefully, 2016 will meet the target of 17,000 social housing units provided directly by local authorities-----

Twenty-eight last year.

-----for people who actually need them.

Twenty-eight houses last year.

How many last year?

In respect of the Deputy's comment about spin and posturing, I think it was important to call in all of the insurance industries. They have written back and there are still some questions-----

Dear John letters.

Maybe the Deputy has it already himself. I do not know. He had information before that I did not have so maybe I should not comment, but they did reply, Deputy Adams. There is a great deal of work to be followed through from what they have said. The Deputy will be aware that the Department of Finance is carrying out an analysis of all the different models of insurance in locations where there is no insurance in other countries, the question of demountable defences here and where there are full-time flood defences in place. In addition, there is the fact that the insurance companies have pointed out some of the statistics for cover, on which there remains to be some further work done. That letter has been received by us. It was considered by Government today and I assure the Deputy it will be followed through in a very realistic fashion by having further consultation with the companies in regard to people who cannot get insurance.

How many houses last year?