In the week when so many families are facing a cliff edge of eviction in view of the ban on evictions being lifted on Saturday, we have learned that housing commencements have declined by 20% under the Government. That is 6,000 fewer new homes than at the same time last year. The Government has consistently over-relied on private developers to provide homes. The private market has proven that it cannot and will not deliver the affordable homes our country needs. The Housing Commission has reported that we will need 50,000 new homes each year to meet the needs of our growing population. This figure is much greater than the target in Housing for All, which, it seems, the Government is not going to meet. The drop in the number of commencements we are seeing will have a knock-on effect on housing delivery in 2023, with everyone already predicting a slowdown in construction. Will the Government revise the Housing for All target to 50,000 new builds per year in order to increase supply and to bring down rent levels and house prices? Will it ramp up State investment in the provision of social and affordable housing, particularly as the Land Development Agency, LDA, report indicates that up to 70,000 homes could be built on public land?

The LDA report, which, I am sure, the Deputy has read at this stage, states that approximately 66,000 homes could be built on public land, but that only in the region of 10,000 of those could be built in the next five to ten years as a result of the constraints relating to the sites involved. We will be scaling up our ambition in the context of what the LDA can achieve. We are examining the Housing for All targets, which have already been ramped up to 40,000 by the end of the decade. Whatever targets we have - and I anticipate that we will be increasing our targets - they have to be realistic. It is a catchcry to stand up at a conference and promise 1 million houses in ten years.

Was the Taoiseach watching?

Yes, I was.

I am glad the Taoiseach saw that.

Very good. Did the Taoiseach learn anything?

I will say no more about it because it would be unkind.

Today's session began with a rather crass debate as to whether 4,000 notices of termination would result in 4,000 families being evicted. The Taoiseach maintains that this would not be the case, and that is fine. What modelling does the Government have of exactly how many families will be evicted? What percentage of the figure of 4,000 to which I refer does the Taoiseach find tolerable? More importantly, where will the people I represent and who come to my office go? The Taoiseach stated that they should go to Free Legal Advice Centres, FLAC, or Threshold. I have gone to Dublin City Council and the Simon Community and they have no idea where people should go. How many families does the Taoiseach anticipate will go into homelessness over the next three months? Where will they go?

It is not possible to model that accurately. People in emergency accommodation are there for all sorts of reasons. The biggest reason in the past six months was family breakdowns and non-citizen families presenting for emergency accommodation. There is no way of predicting how many people will experience family breakdown or how many will apply for emergency accommodation. That is why modelling in this regard cannot exist. It is not that it does not exist; it cannot exist. It would only be a guesstimate, and not a good one.

As I told Deputy McDonald, in the past year, 50,000 families found new places to rent, leading to new tenancies being created. We anticipate about 50,000 new tenancies again this year. The vast majority of people who are served notices to quit will find alternative accommodation of various forms. Emergency accommodation is not the solution; it is just a backstop.