Eight year old children.

The Government must allow local authorities to build on their own landbanks. The Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, has stated that the development of publicly owned residential land for social and affordable housing is a priority for the Government and he promised to make billions of euro available for this. Louth County Council has 52 acres of land which could be used for social and affordable houses, but it has no funds. There are over 5,000 people on the housing list and thousands more cannot afford to buy their own house. In addition, there are scores of unoccupied, council owned houses in County Louth. All they require is a small amount of funding. Will the Minister or the Minister of State, Deputy English, please come to County Louth, meet the CEO and planning officers and, once and for all, give the people of Louth an opportunity to own their own house?

For the third or fourth time in response to different colleagues from County Louth, I wish to be absolutely clear that the funds are available for Louth's local authority and other local authorities to bring forward projects for their lands. We have repeatedly asked every local authority to put projects in place for this year, next year and the following year, so there is a pipeline of projects. I have met Louth's local authority and I have discussed this with the Deputy. We would like that landbank to be developed for housing and we have suggested ways to do it. The funding is available but the local authority must bring forward the applications and solutions before we can release it.