I would like to bring the Taoiseach's attention back to our other national crisis, the housing crisis. Homelessness is at record levels, the price of a house has risen by 50% since 2013 and rents continue to sky-rocket despite the Government's ineffectual rent pressure zones. This Government and its predecessor have treated the housing crisis like some strange, mysterious phenomenon for which we must go on a quest to find solutions but it is actually quite simple. Public house building has ground to a halt; it was slashed to bail out billionaires ten years ago and it has never been restarted. Local authorities own more than 1,200 ha of land with the potential for 38,000 houses but less than 1% of the social housing that is needed has been built on that land. Housing analyst Mr. Mel Reynolds said that it is a policy decision not to build on local authority land and that the State is actually the biggest land hoarder in this country. To hoard land during a housing crisis is akin to hoarding food in a famine. A total of 13 councils did not bother to build a solitary thing in the last two years. Fingal County Council, with which the Taoiseach will be familiar, completed ten homes. Ten homes equates to 0.01% of the number needed for the 8,046 people on its housing list. The Fingal area has 22% of Dublin's population but 35% of its homeless population, mostly in the Taoiseach's own constituency and mine, Dublin West.

It is a microcosm of the national housing crisis.

Solidarity has put forward a proposal to council management to build on its own land. In Blanchardstown the council has 75 acres of zoned land that it has never developed at Damastown. Solidarity has taken drone footage, got architects drawings, made a video, produced a booklet and costed a proposal to provide over 1,100 homes on that land which will be launched tomorrow night by Fr. Peter McVerry in Dublin 15. We seek the support of all councillors for it. Some 50% of those homes will be for workers under an affordable mortgage scheme and 50% for people on the list. Damastown village, if properly planned, with the additional transport infrastructure that Dublin West needs and with dedicated youth facilities and parklands, could transform the lives of thousands of people. Only 15% can get a mortgage. What about the other 85%? Why do we hear on Sean O'Rourke's show today that workers in Ballymun can get a mortgage for €170,000 in the Ó Cualann project but the Taoiseach thinks it is affordable for workers in Blanchardstown to pay €315,000? This could resolve that issue for many workers. Will the Taoiseach back the funding of this project and similar projects nationally, given Dublin West is just a microcosm of the national homeless crisis?

First, I do not agree with the Deputy about rent pressure zones. They are far from perfect but I believe they are working. Some 60% of people in tenancies are now covered by rent pressure zones and, as a result, they are assured their rent will rise by no more than 4% a year. Therefore, the 60% of people who are renting have that assurance, which is a very big assurance, that their rent cannot rise by more than 4% a year. The figures we see from daft.ie and others are published rents, as the Deputy knows. These are new tenancies and new rents, and they do not take full account of the 60% of people who are covered and protected by the rent pressure zones - the existing tenants. The rent pressure zones were designed to cap rent increases to protect people who had tenancies on their homes, and they are working in that regard. They were never designed for new tenancies and do not apply to them.

In terms of social housing and public housing, part of the Deputy's analysis is correct. Due to the collapse of the banking sector, the collapse of the construction industry and the collapse and disaster in the public finances, we were not in a position to build public housing or social housing, or private housing, for very many years. However, it is possible, when we get the final figures, that in this year, 2017, more houses and homes will have been built in the country than in any year since 2010. Therefore, we are starting to see, from a very low base, a ramping up of construction of both social housing - or public housing, if the Deputy prefers - and private housing. The number of directly built social homes this year will be around 2,000 and that will rise to 3,800 next year. We can add to that those that are not directly built by local authorities, for example, houses brought back into use by renovating voids, long-term leases and purchases from developers. That will bring the number of new social homes available to around 7,000 next year, which is a huge increase from only a few hundred a few years ago.

I am very familiar with Fingal. I share the county with the Deputy and we are both former members of that council. Given my familiarity with it, I know for a fact there have been more than ten social homes provided in Fingal in the past year. How do I know that? It is because I have been in more than ten of them. I know the Deputy boycotts these events. She does not like to come to school openings, job announcements or the opening of new social housing because, if she sees no good, then she can perhaps pretend there is no good. However, these places do exist. An example is Hansfield, where there are 100 new social homes, in Wellview, where I and the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, opened about a dozen or so, and also quite a number in Waterville.

The reason the Deputy does not believe they exist, even though they do exist, is because they were not built directly by a local authority; instead, they were acquired from developers, either through direct purchase or through Part V. I can guarantee her that the people who live in those homes, who now have secure social housing, with a council rent, know that these are real homes because they and their families are living in them.

While those houses and people might not count for the Deputy, they do count because they are real properties with real people living in them who now have secure tenancies and pay subsidised council rents.

As regards the proposal in respect of Wellview, we will certainly give consideration to any plan that might help us to provide more housing in the State. The general view of the Government, though, is we want to have mixed developments because they promote social cohesion. If there is public land that could accommodate 1,000 new homes, we would like to see a mix of private housing, affordable housing and also public social housing because that is the best way not just to provide housing but also to build sustainable communities into the future.

Maybe the Taoiseach might actually answer the question this time. Half of the proposed housing in Damastown would be affordable housing, which is a mix. One could not have more of a mix than with 550 affordable mortgages and the development could be delivered. The affordable mortgages would pay for themselves over the period. What the Taoiseach proposes through the HAP scheme is much more expensive than building directly. Since the HAP scheme will, over 30 years, cost €23 billion more than building 132,000 permanent homes, why does he follow this creed? Is it because a few people are enriching themselves off the back of the misery of tens of thousands more?

Regarding Fingal and the other local authority areas the Taoiseach cited, I am discussing direct building, which is the cheapest and most cost-effective way of providing housing, not acquiring at market rates, which is expensive. I hope the Taoiseach will get his party's councillors to back it. We have been told that money is not the object and that there is no shortage of it. The then Minister for Finance appeared before the housing committee last year and it seems that the European Union's fiscal rules prevent us from using money we have available - we do not need to borrow it - to build public homes on public lands. Anyone can see that this is the solution, but it seems that there is neoliberal ideological opposition to doing this and a prioritisation of the private sector at all costs.

First, I did not mention the HAP scheme. That is a separate issue. None of the homes to which I referred would be in that space.

To answer the Deputy's question, we will give full consideration to the proposal she is making in respect of the lands at Damastown. We will, of course, need to see the proposal, test it and see if the business plan stacks up, particularly the Deputy's claim that it will pay for itself. I find that hard to believe, but if her business plan which indicates that this mixed development of social housing and affordable housing can pay for itself stacks up, we would be rather foolish not to take her up on it. Of course, we will consider any serious proposal to build more housing and ensure there will be homes for people who need them and also that everyone will have the opportunity to aspire once again to own his or her own home.

I appeal to the Deputy to reconsider her own very hardline ideological position. Just because social housing or public housing is not built directly by a local authority does not mean that it should not count. I was at an Iveagh Trust development with the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, only a few weeks ago. It is being provided through a long-term leasing arrangement. All of the people moving into that housing know what it is - it is social housing run by the Iveagh Trust, an agency that has been providing housing since before the State was founded. They have secure tenancies and a subsidised rate, but because of the Deputy's ideology, it does not count. I ask her and her supporters to consider their ideology and adopt the approach my party and the Government adopt. When people want housing and come to our clinics, we try to get them into one of these places. We do not try to pretend they do not exist and deny them those places because it goes against our socialist ideology.

I try to-----

I thank the Taoiseach. That concludes Leaders' Questions. We are significantly over time.