Last summer, the Minister with responsibility for housing, Deputy Simon Coveney, made a commitment that by 1 July this year no homeless families would be left in hotels. More than 800 families are still in this situation with six weeks to go. Maybe when the Minister made this commitment he was hoping that by 1 July he would have moved on to better things and some other Minister would have to take the flak. This target will not be reached despite the Minister's most recent assurances. Even with the development of so-called hubs, and I believe there is a plan to establish up to ten of these in Dublin, they will certainly not be ready for use by July. These hubs are in themselves a form of temporary emergency accommodation. Admittedly they are better than hotels or bed and breakfasts, but moving families from one form of emergency accommodation to another, often miles away from the schools their children attend, is not a solution and Niamh Randall from Simon Communities stressed this point this morning on "Morning Ireland".

The other key question about the hubs is how long will families be there before they are properly housed. We now know the rapid build modular houses, proposed originally as temporary homes, are to become permanent homes. Will the hubs become a permanent feature of this Government's dysfunctional housing policy? Given the absence of public housing these families will only get housing in the private rental sector, but this morning the Simon Communities announced on the basis of a survey it did that nine out of ten rental properties are beyond the reach of those availing of housing assistance payment, HAP, and other rent supports. On the other side of this, increasing numbers of families are finding themselves homeless month by month. On top of this, a number of families are living in overcrowded accommodation elsewhere.

I know the Taoiseach will come back at me with a load of figures and projections for house building, but they are not real. Next to nothing is happening, which is why we now have the incredible plan from the Minister to gift to private developers 800 sites on 20,000 ha of land, owned by local authorities in the main, on which 50,000 housing units could be built. This has been described as the sale of the century. I would describe it as the sell-out of the century, on a par with the rip-off of our oil and gas resources, the bank bailout and the bonanza for vulture funds represented by NAMA. Is it not time to end this madness, stop, take stock and commit to a programme of public housing, starting with the construction of 50,000 units on these State lands?

The Deputy's solution is facile to say the least. She could have said 50,000, 70,000 or 100,000 because she seems to imagine housing can be conjured up just like that. She stated these things are not real. What is real is population growth of 3.8% which is greater than the growth in housing stock, which is 0.4%. The average household size has increased for the first time since 1966. Overall housing stock increased by a net 9,000 units. Respondents reported 33,436 units built, admittedly since 2011. I understand 23,000 families and individuals are on HAP schemes. That is a real figure but they are also real people, families and individuals assisted through HAP and living in their homes. The unusual thing is I never hear of anybody being interviewed who has been moved into a house with which they are happy with their families. It is if they never existed. They have been moved out of hotels and out of homelessness and into sustainable long-term housing conditions. It is as if they are just figures who moved off into the darkness.

They are even being evicted from HAPs.

Planning permission has been granted for 16,375 new homes. That is a real figure. Unlike Deputy Collins, we have to build the houses. This means when we have the planning permission we have to have somebody with the blocks, concrete and facilities to be able to build the houses. This is why rapid build housing has been part and parcel of the five pillars for housing we have here. Am I to understand when the Deputy says this that George's Place in Dún Laoghaire, which is of interest to Deputy Boyd Barrett-----

They have been talking about that for years and nothing has happened. They are-----

There are to be 12 homes provided there. In St. Aidan's in Brookfield in Tallaght, 71 homes-----

-----tied up in the procurement process.

In Poppintree in Ballymun there are 22 homes, all of which are occupied.

If Deputy Collins and I went there I wonder if we would see those houses. Would we meet the families who are there? Would she tell me that they are not real, that they are a mirage-----

The ones in Dún Laoghaire are definitely a mirage.

-----or that there is something there that is not real? There will be 24 homes built in Cherry Orchard, 30 in Mourne Road in Drimnagh, 39 in St. Helena's in Finglas, and so on. These are real sites, real opportunities and places where construction is under way to provide rapid build homes for people who need them. I admit there are challenges facing the Minister, Deputy Coveney, in addressing the question of not resorting to the use of hotels by the end of June. I think the Deputy referred to 800 families. My information from yesterday's Cabinet sub-committee meeting is that the figure is about 600 and my information from the housing department is that she will see a very substantial drop in that number by the end of June. It is always a very difficult challenge to meet because it is exceptionally ambitious but they are really focused on moving this along.

As well as that, there are 28,000 vacant homes in the suburbs of Dublin. These are real dwellings but sometimes when one goes to look at them the figures might not be as accurate. There are 750 in the Finglas area but sometimes these are not habitable and have to be brought back to a good shape, and there are incentives and opportunities to do that, whether they be public or private houses.

There are not.

The Taoiseach called my proposal facile. I call his policy a failure. As I expected, he has come back with figures, projections and plans, none of which add up. They are a fantasy. It is a fantasy to believe that the private sector, which was responsible for the problem in the first place, will now be the solution. I am talking about local authority homes.

I refer the Taoiseach and the Minister to proposals put forward recently by the Nevin Economic Research Institute, a body funded by the trade unions. It proposed the creation of a national housing company which could borrow off the books at low rates to build 10,000 public housing units a year to be rented on the basis of the European cost recovery model and at a level to recover the initial investment but below the market rates. That would provide one third of new housing units needed per year and take pressure off the private rented sector and it would also create a mixed tenure, which the Minister has described as desirable. I remind the Taoiseach also that it is in the programme for Government.

I attended a public meeting in Inchicore last night. It was a very well attended meeting and judging by the mood and the determination of the people present, who are absolutely opposed to public land being sold or leased to private developers, they intend to develop a campaign against this policy, The Better Way campaign, and build a significant opposition to selling off our public lands. I ask the Taoiseach again to please come forward with a proper proposal to deal with the thousands of people on the housing waiting lists and those who are waiting to leave hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation.

Yes, and that is part of the five pillars set out by the Minister, Deputy Coveney, in his programme. The State land mapping process has concluded that there are over 700 local authority and Housing Agency owned sites-----

Blocked off for your developer friends.

-----totalling about 1,700 ha, which is a substantial amount of land. There is the potential to build, as Deputy Collins said, 50,000 homes.

By private developers.

The position is that local authorities are now tasked with preparing strategic plans to get on with that business. Twenty five or 30 years ago, local authorities always built more than enough houses and then they got out of that business entirely.

Thanks to you lot.

This Government has given money, facilities and incentives to local authorities to do their job. For instance, we are now making rental a more attractive proposition for investors. The Department of Finance has set up a working group on the tax and fiscal treatment of landlords, which includes officials from the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government. We are taking action to bring vacant properties back into use. The repair and lease scheme, under which local authorities will refurbish vacant properties and lease them from their owners, was rolled out in February. That is real. That will deliver 3,500 properties by 2021. It will cost €150 million. They are making money available through the Housing Finance Agency to higher education institutes. They can now borrow money to build student accommodation, which will free up those houses where students are currently located.

We support the build-to-rent development through pathfinder sites. In February, the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Simon Coveney, launched major infrastructural works at the Cherrywood site in Dublin, costing €35 million. We have requested the local authorities in rent pressure zones to use publicly owned sites to kickstart supply. In that regard, Dublin City Council brought forward a land initiative covering the three sites, at O'Devaney Gardens, Oscar Traynor Road and St. Michael's in Inchicore. They are seeking partners to deliver a mix of social, affordable and private housing. These are all real aspects of the progress being made in terms of housing.