The fast-track planning scheme, the strategic housing development scheme, has not delivered and is not delivering faster housing construction and it has de-democratised and undermined local input into our planning system. In an academic paper emanating from UCD and Queen's University, it is revealed that a group of developers essentially captured the then Minister, Deputy Coveney, and got him to include this initiative for a new planning procedure in the legislation. Developers co-operated with this research work. The developers met. The Minister rang them when he heard about the idea and he met them. They said that they gave him their recommendation and he took it lock, stock and barrel and put it into the new housing legislation. This is what is in the paper itself. Dr. Lorcan Sirr of Technological University Dublin makes the point that it shows how little strategic thinking went into approving the strategic housing development process. A national Fine Gael politician commented on the research that given Fine Gael's predisposition to the market as the best way to solve the housing problem and as a principal policy objective, it was predisposed to this type of initiative. Alarmingly, one experienced architect told the researchers that from a developmental perspective, one of the great benefits of fast-track planning schemes is that they allow one to circumvent the development plan of the city or the county. Essentially, one can apply for a material contravention by the back door and that is a serious issue.

Maybe the Minister took the developers in good faith, as many in the House did. However, research by Killian Woods of The Sunday Business Post demonstrates that the fast-track planning scheme has not worked. No construction has commenced on more than 10,000 units that already have planning permission, which represents two thirds of all units that got permission. No construction has commenced in 47 of the 64 large housing developments granted fast-track permission. No construction has commenced on quite a number approved in 2018. Crucially, numerous sites with planning permission are currently advertised for sale. It seems the scheme has been used to get large-scale planning permission with a view to selling it on. That was not the intention. Half of the firms that received planning permission through the strategic housing development scheme in 2018 have not filed intent to commence construction.

Is the Taoiseach concerned at how naive the then Minister was and how his initiative lacked any strategic thinking within the Department underpinning it? He took on board lock, stock and barrel the developers' proposals and did not put in adequate protections. Does the Taoiseach accept that it has not resulted in faster construction of housing and that the combination of this measure with many of the high-density elements of the planning framework for 2040, with the reduced standards for apartments, is leading to a lopsided development landscape where co-living and build-to-rent is now the dominant preferred model? That is what is happening in our cities. Will the Government revert to greater local engagement and inputs and prevent, with legislation, this scheme from facilitating material contraventions of local development plans by the back door, which was never the original intention of the Oireachtas?

I thank the Deputy for the question. This policy and proposal was developed by the Tánaiste when he was Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government in consultation with his officials. It is entirely reasonable that he would consult industry too when making a policy decision. The intention and idea behind it was to fast-track the planning system to make sure that builders who want to build houses that people need to buy, rent and live in could get planning permission more quickly. Instead of having to go through a two-step planning process of applying to the council, getting permission and then possibly having an appeal to An Bord Pleanála, if a builder was going to build 100 apartments, houses or homes, or more, that builder could go straight to An Bord Pleanála, thereby skipping one of the two steps. The idea behind that was to speed up the planning process to get planning permission more quickly and for houses to be built more quickly, therefore having more homes for people sooner. I thank Deputy Martin and his party for voting for the legislation that allowed that to happen. He neglected to mention that.

I did. I said that.

This proposal was put forward by the Tanáiste when he was Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government but it would not have been possible without Fianna Fáil's support for the housing policy, which I recognise.

I said that.

I am not sure if the figures I was given yesterday were authenticated or not but they indicated that approximately 16,000 homes have received planning permission under this fast-track planning process. Some 6,000 of those are either built or being built. Approximately 10,000 have yet to commence but they may yet commence in the next few months or the next year. There is always a time lag when building new homes or apartments. It does not just happen. One has to apply for planning permission, then go out to tender and then the home needs to be built and is occupied. That figure of 6,000 could be 7,000 to 10,000, or even higher, in the next couple of months. It is important that we assess policy changes since they are not always right and it is appropriate after two, three or four years to look back and see whether a policy was effective.

One has to consider the counterfactual, that if the builders had gone through the old process, through the council and An Bord Pleanála, and ask if the commencement rate would be any higher. Deputy Martin is assuming it would but has no evidence to back that up. He cannot assume it would be higher. If it is in the interests of landowners or builders to secure planning permissions to increase the value of their land, they can do that under the old process too. They can just as easily go to the council and get planning permission from 100 or 150 houses and still not build on it. It is reasonable to look at the counterfactual when considering whether a policy change or initiative worked, not just at what has happened. It is indisputable that there has been a considerable increase in the level of housing construction in the last years. Three or four years ago, almost no new homes were being built in Ireland. Some 20,000 new homes are now being built every year, with 45,000 new homes built since I became Taoiseach. We need to keep increasing that number towards 30,000 or 35,000 a year.

The Taoiseach has been in government since 2012, not just since he became Taoiseach, and he needs to take responsibility for that period too. The bottom line is that it has not resulted in faster construction. I have produced research. It is not my research but research from UCD, Queen's University and The Sunday Business Post, for which Killian Woods did much work to identify what got planning permission and what did not commence. Half of all developments that got planning permission in 2018 have not commenced. The whole purpose was to get construction up and running quickly-----

It was not.

It was.

It was to get planning permission more quickly and the Deputy knows it.

I read the Minister's speech on the day and I have reread it. He rang the developers, all excited, and they came in. They gave him the plans and he took them lock, stock and barrel. That is what they tell the researchers.

That is not what happened.

Quite a number of them told that to the researchers. The Minister accepted their proposals lock, stock and barrel. Some Fine Gael national politician who is very involved in housing told them that is the Fine Gael way, that Fine Gael believes in the market and that the market will solve the housing problem. It has not solved it and homelessness is far worse since the Taoiseach became Taoiseach than with anybody else before that. The core point is that the county plans and city development plans are serious planning frameworks. They are being circumvented by the back door. Material contraventions have a bad name in this country and we are now facilitating them more easily than before through a back door mechanism.

The Deputy is way over time.

The Taoiseach should be producing the alternative evidence, not just telling us to consider the counterfactual.

The Taoiseach should have that evidence. This was raised yesterday by Deputy Boyd Barrett. I accept that the Oireachtas acted in good faith but we were wrong and we should now go back on the decision and revert to the local authority model. Builders on the ground have told me that they never had a problem with timelines under the local authority model but that capacity in An Bord Pleanála was always an issue. This issue needs to be revisited. The Taoiseach cannot remain in denial all of the time. He must listen to good quality research, whether it comes from academia or journalists, which points out failures in something which the Oireachtas, in good faith, believed would work but which, unfortunately, has not worked.

I thank the Deputy. As I said earlier, it is entirely reasonable to look back on a policy change after three or four years to see if it was successful or not. We know that 16,000 homes were given fast-track planning permission through this process.

They are not homes.

I need to study the research but I have not seen whether the authors looked at a counterfactual analysis or at whether developments that went through the old process commenced at a faster rate. The Deputy is right to point out that I have been in government since 2011 but he has been in government too. Let us not forget that. Let us not forget his party's record when it comes to housing. We know Fianna Fáil's record on housing.

We built houses.

The reason we have a housing crisis in this country-----

Fine Gael never built houses.

-----is that Fianna Fáil broke the banks and the construction industry and bankrupted the Government.

Deputy Martin is now keeping the Taoiseach in power.

We had a seven-year period during which almost no new homes were built in this State. There should have been approximately 200,000 houses built during that seven-year period, but none was built. That is why we have a housing crisis.

That is not true.

The responsibility for that lies with the Deputy's party in government. It broke the banks, the construction industry and public policy.

Fianna Fáil in government built far more houses, even during the recession, than the Taoiseach's Government has built subsequently.

His party's record on housing is ghost estates, Priory Hall-----

This is the Trump way; say something even if it is not true and keep repeating it.

-----mica, pyrite, hundreds of thousands of people in negative equity, hundreds of thousands of people in mortgage arrears, and hundreds of thousands of construction workers forced to emigrate. That is his record.

The Taoiseach has not brought many of them back.