I want to raise the issue of affordable housing schemes. Galway County Council is finding it very difficult to put schemes in place in towns such as Tuam, which is the largest county town, Ballinasloe, Loughrea, Gort or Athenry. This is on the basis that the figures do not stack up. Affordability schemes will be in Claregalway, Oranmore and Galway city. The structure by which the scheme has been drafted sets out density levels which are then linked to the supports that come from the Government. The cost of land, the cost of finance and particularly upfront finance, and the absence of any open market value in these areas really and truly raises barriers to getting a scheme that can be deemed to be affordable for the purchaser or young couple who want to buy the house and get approval from the Department.

In essence, what I am saying is that linking density of housing development to the amount of support the Government gives towards an affordable scheme is flawed. It is leaving large towns without an opportunity to provide the affordable housing schemes which are needed. I will take Tuam as an example. Tuam has a population of 8,000 or 9,000 people and not one private housing scheme has been constructed there since 2007 or 2008. We have a housing crisis. I acknowledge we have built an awful lot of social housing but we need to provide houses where people can get an affordable mortgage and be able to live without being a prisoner to it. We need to make the affordable scheme more flexible and not try to have it in a way that one size fits all. A large number of towns around the country are in the same situation.

Coupled with this we can take the smaller villages such as Corofin, Abbeyknockmoy or other such towns where people cannot build because there is no wastewater scheme. An Bord Pleanála has deemed that any development of a housing scheme in these towns and villages is premature until a wastewater treatment plant is delivered. On top of this we have a situation where existing housing estates with private wastewater treatment plants are not being taken in charge by the local authority or Irish Water. If there are infill sites in these developments they cannot get planning permission to build them out. These are the issues affecting delivering houses to people who want to pay for them and want to get them at an affordable price. I ask the Taoiseach to carry out a review of this.

I thank Deputy Canney for raising these matters. The Government wants to remove any barrier that exists to the development of housing and housing schemes, such as the Deputy has indicated. I am concerned when I hear Deputy Canney highlighting these important issues being perceived as barriers in his community. I am very eager to work with him and to work through the structures in Galway to see how we can address some of them. The issue of home ownership is the biggest issue of our time. It is an issue that has created intergenerational anxiety. It is not just young people worried about whether they will ever be able to buy a home but their mum, dad and grandparents worry too. We want to ease this intergenerational anxiety. We are now seeing building homes at levels not seen since 2008. We see 500 individuals or couples buying their first home each and every week. So far this year we have seen more than 350 homes commence to be constructed every working day. These are very encouraging figures and I say this from the point of view of hoping to be able to demonstrate to people that there are some encouraging signs from a housing supply point of view.

I thank Deputy Canney for his acknowledgement on social housing. Sometimes we come into this place and there is a suggestion no social housing is being provided. Deputy Canney is rightly saying that in his community and constituency he is seeing a significant level of social housing being provided. This tallies with the national figures. Last year saw the highest number of social housing units provided any time since the 1970s. Of the past 50 years last year had the highest number. However we have a lot more work to do and we need to be willing to listen to communities. We need to be willing to be more agile and responsive to issues as they arise in communities. With this in mind we have the Galway housing task force. It is being refocused under its new chairperson John McCarthy. I understand it is meeting quarterly. It has a strong work programme to tackle what it describes as Galway-specific issues. I believe it met as recently as yesterday and two more meetings are scheduled already, one for 6 September and one for 28 November. I will ask that the specific issues raised by Deputy Canney be fed into its consideration to see whether progress can be made. I know the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage stands ready to respond to any outcome from that task force.

With regard to the specific issue on wastewater, as Deputy Canney is aware Clarinbridge and Craughwell were successful in being approved for funding last December. It is a very successful scheme and I acknowledge the work done by the Minister Deputy O'Brien in bringing it forward. It was a clever idea to try to empower people locally to make progress on wastewater. It is very important that we see these projects being successful so we can then have a further phase of roll-out in the small villages specifically referenced by Deputy Canney.

There are now cost-rental projects approved in Galway city. This will see homes delivered on the Old Monivea Road at Ballybrit by Tuath next year. I will take on board the specific issues raised by Deputy Canney and I will ask the Galway housing task force to look at them in conjunction with the Department of housing and we will continue to liaise with him.

I thank the Taoiseach and I acknowledge that Clarinbridge and Craughwell have been given an allocation to put in wastewater treatment plants and not before time. The reality is there is a list of 30 more similar centres in Galway. When the Minister, Deputy O'Brien first announced the funding call it was three years ago. It was only in December that an announcement was made as to where the money would go. This type of long drawn-out process has to stop. We need to take it seriously in the sense that if we are to provide affordable houses we need to provide the infrastructure required. At the same time we cannot leave people living in houses which they bought in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 with the responsibility to maintain the private wastewater treatment plants there. At the same time they are paying their mortgages, local property tax and everything else. They seem to be left in limbo with the developers having washed their hands, Irish Water having washed its hands and the local authorities having washed their hands of all of this problem. The Government needs to have a look at this. It is particularly prevalent in the west of Ireland, and Galway in particular, where private wastewater treatment plants are not being taken into charge by anybody.

There is a lot of hand hygiene and a lot of people washing their hands here. Let me assure the Deputy we will not wash our hands of our responsibility to deliver for the people of Galway in terms of housing supply. I am pleased with the progress we are making on social housing, as Deputy Canney has acknowledged. I also acknowledge that we need to do more on this. We continue to be ambitious with regard to social and affordable housing. There are also a hell of a lot of people in this country who want to buy their own homes. There are a hell of a lot of parents who want to see their adult children buy their own homes. We have a responsibility to listen to communities and builders and put schemes in place. There are reasons to be encouraged by housing supply when we see almost 33,000 new homes built last year alone, exceeding the target.

Let me be absolutely clear - the Government intends to lift the scale of its ambition in terms of housing supply. We will publish draft housing targets in the summer and finalised targets in the autumn. As part of realising and reaching those targets, we will have to work with the likes of the Galway Housing Task Force to see how, county by county, we can raise the scale of ambition.