Can the Tánaiste shed any light on the bizarre comments made by the Taoiseach about how young working people are supposed to raise deposits and secure an affordable home to purchase? It is not an exaggeration to say that vast numbers of people are puzzled and infuriated about the Taoiseach's advice to go to the bank of mum and dad to deal with the impossible task of coming up with a deposit or finding affordable housing.

In the 1970s a couple, one a nurse and the other a council worker, could probably pay a modest rent while saving a deposit for an affordable house. Today, even in the best case scenario, that is not possible for a couple living in Dublin. A teacher on €35,000 and a clerical worker in the council, on a starting salary of €23,000, who go to EBS would be allowed to borrow approximately €240,000. If they manage to save a deposit of €27,000 they could buy a house for €270,000. The problem is that the average rent for a one-bedroomed apartment is €1,200 per month so there is no chance they can save that deposit. Two public sector workers used to be able to put money aside but after pay cuts, pension levies, USC, property tax, waste charges, increases in motor tax and utility price hikes, they simply do not have the money, especially if they have three or four children. The bank of mum and dad does not exist. It is mythical except for a pampered few in this country.

Even if a couple could get to the stage of having a deposit and a mortgage, where would they find a house for €270,000 in Dublin? The answer is "nowhere". Does the Tánaiste know how many houses were available in Dún Laoghaire for under €300,000 this week? There were seven. There was none under €200,000. The average house price in Dublin is €350,000 but in Dún Laoghaire it is €600,000. This also renders the affordable mortgage scheme completely useless for huge swathes of Dublin.

Will Fine Gael get real? What planet are they living on? Can they give some better advice to struggling working people trying to get on the housing ladder than to go to the bank of mum and dad?

The Government is not pretending that any one initiative will solve the housing problem. It will be a combination of a whole series of things. The Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, announced three new initiatives in the past week: an affordable rental scheme; an affordable housing scheme; and a Rebuilding Ireland home loan mortgage system. All of these will help large numbers of people in different parts of the country, including in Dublin, to get their foot on the housing ladder or to find affordable rent.

We all know that the core pressures in housing are linked to a shortage of supply of social housing, affordable housing, affordable private housing and the private housing market generally. All of the supply indicators are moving in the right direction but there is significant pressure as there is population growth, leading to 50,000 extra people in Ireland each year, and this is happening in the areas where there is most housing pressure. We are conscious of that and we need to continue to launch new initiatives that help certain segments in different elements of the market. It will be more difficult to have an affordable housing scheme in Dún Laoghaire because land is much more expensive and is more difficult to get. In this regard, there is more of an onus on the local authority to provide social and affordable housing on publicly owned sites, which is what we are pushing it to do.

The Deputy should not dismiss good initiatives that are already attracting significant interest from potential home buyers, who are asking questions about a very attractive new proposition whereby they can borrow for the next 25 years at interest rates at somewhere between 2% and 2.5% on an income that would not have allowed them to get a mortgage previously.

This is a good initiative and should be welcomed. It is not the panacea to all of our problems. Increased supply is the core issue that the Government is trying to respond on, and multiple actions are taking place so that we can deliver on that. Let us not try to fit a scheme that has been launched this week into a demand that needs a different type of solution, but let us also not pretend these schemes are not going to provide good and sustainable solutions for many people who do not have them today. That is what the Government needs to do. This is a complex challenge, which goes from homelessness and dealing with the most vulnerable people to helping those who can afford and who want to buy homes to access affordable mortgages in the right way.

The Minister needs to get real here. One has to be earning €75,000 to borrow €300,000, and houses cannot be bought in huge swathes of Dublin, as I have just pointed out, for that price. What about the vast majority of people who do not have €75,000 and who, in any event, even if they did have it, almost certainly could not find a house in Dublin for that price? The scheme does not offer them anything at all, except the illusion or fantasy that the bank of mum and dad will sort it out. The Tánaiste said that there is a particular onus on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to build on public land. There is a particular onus on the Tánaiste to explain why the Government sold off the Cherrywood site to an American property speculator, ensuring that the prices in what will be a new town with the potential to solve the housing crisis in the whole of south Dublin will now be totally unaffordable. He should also explain why the previous commitment that the local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, would deliver 40% affordable housing on developments such as Cherrywood has now been abandoned. Will the Tánaiste reinstate that commitment? Will he define what affordability is? Tell me what is affordable and who can afford it.

I have been handed a note here, and I should correct the record that there are actually 600 homes in Dublin on daft.ie right now that can be purchased for less than €250,000.

I am talking about south Dublin, not the whole of Dublin.

I am not saying that is enough, but-----

The Deputy got that wrong.

The Deputies should listen. That is enough.

What has the Deputy got against the north side?

-----I am saying we are making progress in this area. Planning permission is up by almost 50%, commencements are up by almost 50% and mortgage approvals are up significantly. The property market is moving in the right direction although there are still significant pressures to deal with when it comes to public policy.

The Deputy seems to be suggesting that the schemes we have announced, particularly the Rebuilding Ireland home loan scheme, will not have a positive impact on people. Let us take some examples. A person earning €40,000 a year and living in Mayo could afford to buy a house worth €225,000 provided he or she had a deposit of €22,000. That person could then borrow €198,000 from his or her local authority and the monthly repayments would be in the region of €858 per month or 33% of his or her net disposable income. That is a viable option for people and that is why we are proceeding with it. A couple-----

I have to be even handed.

Let us not, for the sake of politics, undermine good schemes that can help many young families around the country to get on the housing ladder.

What has the Deputy got against country people?