The issue of housing is coming up at people's doors right across the country, particularly in my city of Dublin. My assessment is the Government has completely lost the trust of the Irish people in this regard. Political capital is an uncertain currency but we all know that it eventually disappears. It is evaporating for the Government at present in the context of the housing issue. This is because the Government is betting everything on a market that is not reliable. This has echoes of other debates that are taking place.

Regarding the HAP scheme, on which the Government has been relying, it is interesting to go back to the spending review by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform from July 2018. Similar to the broadband one, it seems that the Department is critical. It said that it is estimated based on local authority areas analysed that the net present cost of delivering units through mechanisms such as HAP, RAS and leasing is higher than building or acquisition. Similarly, the leasing schemes the Government is promoting are very similar to the national broadband scheme. It is effectively saying to private developers that they have a no-risk guaranteed income for 25 years and at the end of it, they will own the asset - public housing that is being privatised. In respect of the reliance on the market, Mel Reynolds, with whom I spoke because he is probably the best person to throw light on what is happening with the real numbers, estimates today that we are still relying on the market for about 95% or 94% of all housing. Even with regard to the approved housing bodies and local authorities, they are conflating, as the national audit committee said last year, turnkey purchases with new build. We are relying on the market. From talking to people in the industry, it is clear that conditions in the market are starting to change and there is a real risk that if the capital leaves or the cost of capital goes up, that market will not deliver.

It is welcome to hear that the Irish Council for Social Housing has issued a report this morning that details the number of houses built last year but we must really analyse the figures to realise that the real numbers of real builds by the State is a fraction of what the headline figures would have us think. The council has two asks. First, it says that the Land Development Agency legislation should be produced straightaway and I agree. It was launched prematurely last September, probably for political reasons. Again, this is typical of Fine Gael. The Irish Council for Social Housing is saying that it must be issued quickly. Its second ask that we use State land extensively for the delivery of social and affordable rental housing.

Will the Government recognise that its way is broken and that it must change and that the way we could do that is to tell the Land Development Agency that on all State lands it will use, we should aim to have 50% affordable cost-rental housing, which will bring down market rents, and 50% social housing? That provides opportunity and a sense of hope not just for those who are homeless but those hundreds of thousands of young people and their parents and grandparents who have no sense of any possible future and who are paying through the nose in rent. Will the Taoiseach direct the Land Development Agency to pursue the policy his own party says it supports, namely, cost-rental affordable housing, and move away from a reliance on the market that is killing a sense of future in this country and costing us a fortune?

Housing is a significant concern for citizens and families across the State, be they people on the housing list waiting for social housing, people who want to buy their first home or a new home and are struggling to do so or people who are facing very high rents that take up a large proportion of their income. It has very much been the priority of Government to get on top of these issues over the past couple of years. While we have a lot to do, we are making progress in some areas. One of the areas where we have made the most progress is in the area of supply. A total of 18,000 new houses and apartments were built last year, more than any previous year this decade. That does not include student accommodation and other forms of housing. Roughly one quarter of that new housing was social housing, which is a higher proportion than we have seen for quite some time. This year, we anticipate that somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 new homes and apartments will be built in Ireland. Last year, the social housing stock increased by about 9,000 through many different mechanisms. It will increase by more than 10,000 this year and by 12,000 thereafter. Our objective is to double the social housing stock in this country over the next ten years. That is not a policy that is over reliant on the market.

We take a practical rather than an ideological view on this. We need the private sector and the State sector. We need social housing and private housing. We need houses for people on the housing list and houses for people who want to buy. The vast majority of people in Ireland still want to own their homes, which is a good thing and the reason we also need private developers. We also need a better rental model and better options for people who are renting, particularly the cost-rental model, which we are piloting in various parts of this city. I very much welcome the contributions of the Irish Council for Social Hosing today, a body that represents approved housing bodies. The council pointed out that approved housing bodies housed over 4,000 families last year and exceeded the targets set in Rebuilding Ireland. Approved housing bodies do this with public money. The money they use is taxpayers' money that has been assigned to them by the Government. That shows our commitment to delivering social housing through bodies such as those.

The announcement made last September about the Land Development Agency was not premature. It was the announcement of the establishment of the agency. The agency has now been established. It exists and has a CEO, board and staff. It was established by order. That was what was announced last September. The legislation is being worked on as priority by the Department of Finance and the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. The intention is for up to 50% of Land Development Agency sites to be used for social and affordable housing with the other half being used for homes for people to buy. This recognises that we want to see mixed integrated communities into the future, which is good policy, and that we also need to provide housing of all sorts - social housing for people on the housing list, homes for people who need to rent and homes for people to buy. We should never forget that the vast majority of people in Ireland want to be able to own their own homes. The rate of home ownership is 70%. That should be the case and we want that to increase, not decrease.

The real urgency is that people want low rent. Those caught in the rental sector are the ones who are caught - our younger generation. Fr. Peter McVerry, who I trust on this, said today that the primary responsibility for social housing lies with the Government and that it is falling short. Regarding all this talk about the numbers, if we parse it down, it is falling short because it is relying on the market. We are agreed. The Taoiseach has just said that cost-rental is the particular way to tackle that rental sector. It has the advantage of the land cost and the developer's margin not being included so the rent is reduced by about 35%. We know from the analysis carried out by the National Economic and Social Council and others that it is the best system because it will allow us ongoing funding through a cyclical counter cyclical period. We can bring the cost down because it will be cheaper for us to build than rely on the private sector, which is not reliable. Again, I go back to the question of State lands. I welcome John Moran's arrival in that office and I hope he does a good job. We will support him. We need to do this and not just give a fat cheque to the private sector for 25 years where we are paying over the odds. We need also to start recognising that we can do this ourselves and build cost-rental housing that is high-quality, close to the centre and delivers for a variety of different people - a mix of people in social and public housing - and at the end of it, we own the asset, not a private operator. This is the fundamental issue of our time. The Government is privatising everything. We want certain things to be in public ownership and social housing should be in public ownership for use forever and a day for the people of Ireland. In respect of small example projects on State lands, will the Taoiseach give the Land Development Agency a target of 50% cost-rental and 50% social housing? That is the way to rescue those people in the rental crisis.

We both agree that this is a real problem. We need to tackle high rents. Where we disagree is that the Deputy thinks there is only one way to reduce rents while I and this Government appreciate that we must do it in a number of different ways. "Yes", we need more social housing. We added 9,000 units to the social housing stock last year because when we have more social housing, we are able to take people out of the private rental sector, bring them into social housing and free up properties for others who need to rent. That is one way of doing it. The second way is more private housing built by private developers because lots of people want to buy their own homes. If more people who are renting could buy their own homes if they were available, that would free up properties for others to rent and help bring down rents. The cost-rental model is also part of the solution and that is what we are piloting in Emmet Road and other places. There are also increased protections for tenants. The Deputy will be aware of the laws that have gone and are going through this House to increase protections for and rights of tenants so I do not think there is only one solution to this. We must approach it in four or five different ways and in a practical and non-ideological manner and that is what the Government is doing. What we are saying with regard to Land Development Agency lands is that up to 50% of those sites should be social and affordable housing and 50% homes for people to purchase so they can own them themselves and become homeowners but we must apply some flexibility around the different sites in different places. It may not always be practical to do that but that should be the overall objective.