Last night, an overwhelming majority of Dublin city councillors, including some colleagues of the Taoiseach, voted against transferring public land to a private developer. The councillors took a stand for public housing on public land to meet social and affordable need. They know this is the only way to tackle this city's overwhelming housing crisis. The proposal for Oscar Traynor Road in Coolock was a bad deal. It would have seen a very valuable site gifted to a private developer for free. Half of the proposed homes would have been sold at unaffordable open market prices and the 20% that were meant to be affordable were not affordable. The full cost of these homes would have been €325,000 for a one-bedroom home and up to €380,000 for a three-bedroom house. That is off the wall and it is certainly not affordable for the vast majority of working people. Under this deal, the council would have been paying over the odds for the social homes and, worst of all, the developer would have pocketed full market value of the land, land that it got for free, meaning significant profits for the developer.

This crazy deal represents the very worst of Fine Gael housing policy. It is proof positive that as long as housing policy is directed by wealthy developers, we will never fix this housing crisis. The refusal of the previous Government to fund large-scale public housing developments left councils with few options, but it does not have to be that way. We can move on from a generation having to settle for the box room of their parents' home as a home for their own families, from couples scrimping and saving every spare euro but still not being able to get a deposit together and from young people being ripped off by sky-high rents. We can get a good deal for people who need affordable housing and social housing. The Government can fund councils to deliver public housing on public land to meet social and affordable housing need.

The Oscar Traynor Road development can proceed in the same timeframe as originally envisaged, but it will need Government support. It needs the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to work with Dublin City Council to secure a long-term, low-interest European Investment Bank loan and a serviced sites fund grant from his Department. In other words, it needs exactly the same deal as the one being used for St. Michael's Estate in Inchicore, Dublin 8. That deal would ensure affordable rents, at approximately €800 per month, and affordable purchases, at €230,000 or less.

Will the Taoiseach support public housing on public land? Will he work with Dublin City Council to ensure all of the homes on the Oscar Traynor Road site are genuinely affordable? Finally, will he instruct the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to assist Dublin City Council to secure the funding that is required to develop the Oscar Traynor Road site as a matter of urgency?

First, by way of clarification, my earlier statement was on behalf of the Government. That is very important. It is a matter for the Oireachtas in its own time to decide how it wishes to proceed. That is an important point. My earlier statement in terms of the judicial issue was on behalf of the Government because the Government has a constitutional duty and responsibility relating to the judicial arm of government in terms of confidence in it. I think I might have inadvertently said I had spoken on behalf of the Oireachtas. I did not. I spoke on behalf of the Government in my contribution earlier. It is a matter for the Oireachtas independently to take its own initiative if it so wishes.

On the question of Oscar Traynor Road, we hear a great deal of rhetoric and there are many fixed ideological positions from different political parties on housing. As a general plea, sometimes we will have to leave ideology outside the room and start building houses in some shape or form. I attended a Cabinet committee on housing yesterday. This talk about developers is nonsense. We do not have a superfluity of developers any more. We will not build 20,000 houses this year because of Covid-19. The ESRI says we should build 33,000 housing units per annum to try to keep up with population growth. We will not meet that target this year because of Covid, and we will not meet it next year. We will try to get to 25,000. Of that 25,000, 12,500 will be State builds or approved housing body builds. It will be social housing. That leaves 10,000 to 12,000 private sector houses being built. We all need to concentrate on the reality. It is grand to say we just want it all one way. Some people want cost rental, which is valid. I have great respect for the cost rental model, but there will have to be a mix in different sites.

This Government has no responsibility for the evolution of the Oscar Traynor Road site, and it is not appropriate that an attempt is being made by the Deputy, and indeed in Dublin City Council in its motion, to enjoin the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, as if it is now his problem and he must resolve it. This has been ongoing in its most recent phase since 2016. Dublin City Council's executive had progressed the plan to develop 853 homes on the site, on the basis of 30% social housing, 20% affordable housing and 50% private housing. The approach was agreed by the council's housing strategic policy committee in 2016 and there was agreement by the full council in January 2017, by 58 votes to four. The council executive has contended that the council members' voting down of its own proposal may set this site back five to eight years. The executive said, regarding the council's contention that it would develop the site itself, that Dublin City Council is not a developer or a construction contractor, and the expertise for large-scale construction work of this nature is specific and complex. The council executive is saying that it would take on substantial legal planning and, above all, funding and financial risks associated with undertaking a development of this scale. In any event, that was not the model that the councillors had agreed in January 2017.

Apparently, the site has been vacant since the 1970s. It was prioritised for development via the housing land initiative and the approach was put to the council chamber. The council's executive advice, that is, the city management, is that an exhaustive process has been undertaken over recent years. It considered the most effective way to develop the site in terms of mixed tenure and from the financial perspective. There was a motion to defer the vote on the issue to have further engagement with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the developers selected by the council and Dublin City Council's consultative group. However, the council members rejected that and agreed with the proposal that the council would develop the site itself, and that the executive should write to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage for an urgent meeting with regard to developing the site for public housing, referred to as the St. Michael's model. The Dublin City Council St. Michael's site includes 30% social housing and is 70% the cost-rental model, the cost rental element of which is anticipated to be funded via Dublin City Council's borrowing from the European Investment Bank, EIB.

The Minister has asked the chief executive of Dublin City Council for a report on the issues, with a view to engaging with Dublin City Council on what the next steps forward are. That is the current position. The Minister will meet with Dublin City Council, but I do not suggest that this is all going to be simple or that it will all happen next month. The decision is significant.

This is not a matter of ideology, but of pure common sense. That is why I assume the Taoiseach's colleagues on Dublin City Council, or a good number of them, voted down this proposal. It is a matter of proper standards, the right approach to housing policy and a matter of logic that one does not hand over massively valuable sites to private developers so that they can profit and ordinary working people are still left outside the housing market.

The sum of €380,000 for a three-bedroom home is not affordable to the vast majority of working people. That is the reality. The Taoiseach is quite correct: the site has been vacant since the 1970s. Let it be recorded that the previous Government the Taoiseach supported by way of confidence and supply refused the fund the proper development of public housing on this hugely valuable site. I am asking the Taoiseach if he will change that policy.

I thank Deputy McDonald. Her time is up.

Will this Government on his watch now assist Dublin City Council in the way I have set out-----

The Deputy's time is up.

-----to ensure that the site is developed efficiently and that it results in affordable housing for people who desperately need it?

I thank the Deputy very much. We are over time.

In relation to ideology, it was a general point, not specific to this site, but it is an important point. Our party believes in social housing. That is why this year's budget is historic. Very substantial funding is going to public housing. A record sum of €3.3 billion has been allocated for housing, but we need to get projects going. We need to get houses built as well. I ask people to reflect on the fact that we are still rejecting proposals in 2020 for something that started in 2016, with the potential for 850 houses, no matter who is at fault. We are in a housing crisis and people need houses. That is all I am saying.

That they can afford.

It is a general point.

That they can afford.

Yes, by the way, we believe in home ownership as well.

The Taoiseach should be allowed to respond without interruption.

Others do not, but we believe in the concept of home ownership in anchoring communities. In any event, there will be a mix of housing. We developed the concept of mixed developments well over two decades ago on particular sites. People need to engage with a view to getting this issue resolved as reasonably and quickly as they possibly can because an awful lot of people need housing at different levels.

I thank the Taoiseach very much.

We are going to do the social housing side of it very strongly in 2021. Much funding has been put aside for that.

The time is up. Before I call Deputy Barry, at the end of Leaders' Questions those leaders who wish to respond very briefly to what the Taoiseach said at the outset will be given an opportunity.