Cuirim fáilte rompu freisin. I hope they have a successful and fruitful visit.

We have discussed and debated in the House and at committee meetings in the past four years the challenges that remain in housing. I have not claimed success, as Deputy Boyd Barrett said at the start; absolutely not. What I have done is to clearly record where progress has been made. Last year, we built more new social homes than have been built in 50 years and this year we will build more than that. This year, we will deliver-----

Does Deputy Collins have a problem?

Yes, I do.

Okay, perhaps she can wait to ask a question and let me answer Deputy Boyd Barrett.

On affordable housing, when this Government came into office no affordable homes were offered at all. The Deputy knows that. Last year, 1,757 housing solutions were delivered on affordable housing. This year the figure will be more than 6,000. I am not claiming success or that we have dealt with every challenge and every issue, absolutely not. Unquestionably, to get to grips with what still remains a massive challenge in housing, we need to increase the supply of social, affordable and private homes.

In Deputy Boyd Barrett's constituency, 597 homes are being delivered on the Shanganagh Castle site, which Deputy Devlin and others know well, by the Land Development Agency, which did not have legislation when we came into government and did not have any capital. The LDA delivered almost 1,000 homes last year and will deliver more than that this year. A flagship estate is being built there.

In my constituency of Dublin Fingal, 1,200 homes are being delivered in Ballymastone, of which 253 are social and 253 are affordable. I could give loads of examples and the Deputy knows about them. Although we are building all those properties, we still have more to do because people enter homelessness and emergency accommodation for a variety of reasons, as the Deputy also outlined. We have to make sure we have a safety net for them and good quality, emergency accommodation from which people can exit more quickly. We are doing that now. In quarter 2 alone, 630 households exited into safe and secure homes. That is why we have to continue to increase the output, especially of social housing. We will meet our target this year and we will meet and exceed the social housing target. As I speak today, we have almost 25,000 social housing units in the pipeline. It is unprecedented, although Deputy Joan Collins and others might disagree with that, it is simply a fact. We are delivering more social homes now than have been delivered in 50 years. Do we need to do more? Yes, of course we do.

That is why we have the problem.

That is why we need a planning system that supports the delivery of the homes and infrastructure we need. That is why I expect Deputies on both sides of the House to support the Planning and Development Bill when it comes back to the House for its final Stages, so we can ensure we have an efficient planning system under which someone from Ballina cannot object to a social housing development in Bray and under which we do not have people blocking housing for others and delaying housing. We have planning decisions being made in courts. This affects people and delays housing delivery and the Government is determined to fix the planning system as well. I look forward to receiving the support of all Deputies opposite when this Bill comes before the House for its final Stages at the start of October.

I have been campaigning on the Shanganagh site, which the Minister will open tomorrow, for 18 years. It has taken us 18 years to develop a public site to deliver 600 social and affordable houses. At that rate, we are facing a grim and long housing crisis. By the way, we still do not know what the price of the affordable housing there will be. There will be 200 social houses. There are approximately 5,000 families on the housing list in our area who have been waiting for 15 to 20 years. Many of the people in the cost-rental bracket who have been thrown off the housing list because their income is above the threshold will not qualify for cost-rental schemes because their income is not high enough and they will be left high and dry.

The Minister did not provide an answer about the people I mentioned who are older, sick, vulnerable people. The only thing being offered to those who live in Dún Laoghaire is to go to dormitory or hostel accommodation in Dublin city centre and they will not go.

They are terrified. They are too sick for that. That is why they are sleeping in cars and couch surfing. They need something in their local area.

Thank you Deputy. Time is up now.

Will the Minister please do something about the thresholds? People have spent 15, 16 and 17 years on the list and then that time is gone.

I was the first Minister since 2011 to increase the social housing income limits.

We increased them all across the country and they remain under review. We need to increase our own stock of social housing. In the four years of this Government, we have been able to do that and to scale up the capacity to deliver. Certainly, there is much more to do. I only used Shanganagh as an example; I could give the Deputy 20 more. He only has to drive around his own constituency, around Dublin or anywhere across the Twenty-six Counties of the Republic to see what developments are happening right now. Cost rental is making a difference, by the way, for lots of people.

I want to answer the Deputy specifically about seniors. He raised a very good point. There are a lot of people who are retired and on a State pension. It is a big focus to ensure we have right-sizing initiatives in place for people and that local authorities are building homes for seniors and our more vulnerable people.

Another challenge is exiting people from insecure housing assistance payment, HAP, tenancies. In the past three years, we have exited 14,000 people from HAP into permanent, safe and secure social homes. We will continue the purchase of homes with the tenant in situ scheme, which has been a success, this year.

Will the Minister help the people I mentioned?

I am happy to look at those cases if the Deputy gives me the details.