I call Deputy Boyd Barrett from Solidarity–People Before Profit.

Plans are well under way for a national demonstration on 7 April on the housing and homelessness crisis and the shambles of this and the previous Government's policies that created the crisis. Groups such as the Peter McVerry Trust, Focus Ireland, Simon Community, housing and community groups, trade unions and many of the Opposition political parties are mobilising for that protest and demanding a radical change from the failed policies that have been pursued for the past seven years and which have created the housing emergency that now faces the country.

There are many aspects to the failure of the Government's policies, mostly turning on the Government's refusal to return to a local authority-led direct programme of council housing construction to deal with the housing crisis and its continued reliance on the private market instead, which cannot deliver and bodies external to the State and the local authorities. The latest evidence of the shambles of the Government's policy is the decision of the CSO, after consultation with EUROSTAT, to reclassify approved housing bodies as being on-balance sheet, meaning that it will have an impact on the general Government balance and Government debt. The fantasy of having off-balance sheet vehicles to deliver social housing rather than the local authorities doing it directly has now been exposed. The consequence of this, as the Irish Council for Social Housing has said, is that the 15,000 new social houses supposed to be delivered by approved housing bodies are now in jeopardy. The tier three approved housing bodies are now in jeopardy and we do not know what impact it may have on Government debt and the general Government balance because of the madness of the fiscal rules that prevent the State investing directly in building the council and public housing we desperately need.

What does the Tánaiste have to say about this? Is this not further evidence of the bankruptcy and folly of refusing to return to old-style local authority-led council housing provision and to develop an emergency programme in that area? Everything the Government does that is not about that is failing to deliver or, in this case, running into deep trouble which is jeopardising, yet again, the fantastic plans of the Rebuilding Ireland programme.

I am afraid the Deputy's approach on this issue is coloured by ideology, and that is the problem. Some of what the Deputy is saying is true. We need to gear up local authorities to build many more social houses. That is happening, but it cannot happen overnight. There is no silver bullet that will solve the social housing in the immediate term.

They have had six years to do it.

What we are doing is dramatically increasing the number of social housing projects that local authorities are delivering and we are funding them. We have seen a dramatic increase in public funding for social housing through local authorities.

We are also funding projects that approved housing bodies are delivering and we are putting substantial funds into acquisition programmes. We are working to purchase properties that are derelict. However, there will not be one silver bullet that solves this problem, and certainly not one that is driven by an ideology that the State has to own everything. It will be a combination of all of those matters.

In the meantime, while we are delivering many more new housing units and bringing housing units that are vacant back into use, there is a reliance on the supported rental accommodation in the private sector to deal with the thousands of families that need State intervention. Over 25,000 social housing solutions were financially supported by the State last year. We want to change the emphasis in terms of that support to increasing the number of social houses that people can access, and we are doing so. When I became Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government a number of years ago, good foundations had been laid by the previous Minister and I built literally on the back of those. In 2016, fewer than 100 social houses were built by local authorities. Last year, over 2,000 were built. Next year, the number will probably double, and the year after, it will increase again significantly until we are up to figures for social housing delivery, between approved housing bodies and local authorities, of somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000. That is where we need to be.

To come in here and pretend that we can throw all this away and say, "Let us just build social housing", without the capacity to do that or the sites ready to go, or the processes in place that can deliver that immediately, is misleading and pretending that we have some kind of ideological objection to building social housing through local authorities which we do not have.

The Tánaiste is always ideologically driven. That is why there is a homeless crisis.

Money has not been an obstacle for the past 18 months in terms of social housing projects.

Rubbish.

We are working directly, with management and with local authorities, to ensure we are providing the financial resources to deliver an extra 50,000 social houses over the lifetime of the Rebuilding Ireland plan. This is a dramatic increase of almost one third in the social housing stock in Ireland. That is what we are doing. We will deliver that across multiple different plans which is what the complexity of the Rebuilding Ireland plan is all about.

What the Deputy does not like is that it is actually starting to work. We are seeing a 50% increase in planning applications-----

Eight thousand people are homeless. It is the Tánaiste's plan. He is the ideologically driven one.

-----a 50% increase in commencements and a dramatic increase in the delivery of social housing on sites right across the country.

I am afraid the Tánaiste is the one who is driven by blind ideology.

In the past couple of weeks, I had to deal with somebody who has been on the housing list for 19 years and who has just been evicted from a HAP tenancy, which is supposed to be one of the Tánaiste's housing solutions. She will now be driven back into another HAP, which is insecure. The Tánaiste is claiming that is a housing solution; it is not. The problem is the vast majority of the Government's plans to deal with the housing crisis are an accident waiting to happen because they are reliant on a private sector that cannot deliver.

The Tánaiste did not respond to something that is being discussed as we speak where the Secretary General of the Department of Finance is answering questions at the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government about the fact that another pillar of the Government's housing plan is now in serious trouble. The magic formula of using off-balance sheet rather than local authority funding has run into big problems because the CSO and EUROSTAT are classifying it as on-balance sheet. This affects the level of Government debt and the general Government balance and, as I said, puts in jeopardy 15,000 of the approved housing body units that are supposed to be delivered under the Government's plan.

The time has expired.

HAP does not work. The approved housing bodies, AHB, and off-balance sheet plan is now in serious trouble. When will the Tánaiste get it?

The Tánaiste to respond.

We need to return to something the State did for decades, building council houses.

That is what we are doing. I have this conversation with the Deputy regularly across this floor. We are doing what the Deputy is calling for and we are gearing up the local authorities. We are not limiting the funding that is available to them.

They are catching the Tánaiste up here.

The local authorities are at capacity in terms of delivering. In fact, we are putting pressure on management in virtually every local authority, certainly, in urban Ireland, to deliver more than they are currently able to deliver.

Finance is not the obstacle in terms of delivery in most of those projects, rather it is capacity. We are using all our capacity, whether it is through approved housing bodies, AHBs-----

Answer the question about the AHBs.

-----acquisitions, vacant property initiatives etc.

In terms of what is on and off-balance sheet, we are not relying on off-balance sheet investment. It is true that there are elements of the plan that look to try to deliver housing off-balance sheet.

Fifteen thousand.

If that comes under question, we must deal with the consequences of that, but the main thrust of our social housing delivery plan is very much on balance, which is why the Department has seen such a dramatic increase in funding. No Department has seen funding increases like those of the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government over the past two or three years.

The Tánaiste has exhausted his time.