I want to follow on with the subject of housing and, in particular, the issue of affordable housing for first-time buyers in this country. A number of things could help with the delivery of affordable houses. The Tánaiste spoke about wastewater treatment plants. In many villages and towns in my constituency and throughout the country, people cannot build houses because there are not wastewater treatment plants. When I became a councillor in 2004, it was on the back of a plan to build a wastewater treatment plant in Corofin, a place the Tánaiste will know well from football. Now, in 2024, that is not on anybody's agenda. In 2007, An Bord Pleanála stated that we could not build any houses in Corofin because it would be premature to do so in the absence of a municipal treatment plan. That type of thing is replicated all over the country.

The affordable housing scheme that is place is not working in many of our towns. In Tuam, the largest county town in Galway, we cannot get an affordable scheme to work as a result of the matrix that is in place. the contribution towards development density and all that type of thing. In Galway, the second biggest county in Ireland, there is only one affordable scheme. That scheme is due to be launched later today. We are falling far behind the curve.

The other thing that is giving rise to costs and making housing unviable is in our zoning and planning policies - not our Planning Acts - is that we have what is called core planning. Basically, this stipulates that we cannot zone as much land as we would like. We are confined to zoning a certain amount of land under what is referred to as R1 zoning. When that land is used up, we go to R2 land. As the Tánaiste said, however, some of the land that has been zoned is owned by farmers who are working it. This land will never be available. There are other lands that cannot be made available for legal reasons, tax reasons or whatever. We are zoning land and preparing local area plans without looking to see if the land is available at all. That is creating a scarce commodity, namely land that is zoned. This, in turn, is adding to the cost of building houses. These are not things that would cost money. They are things that can be done with a change in policy. I ask the Tánaiste to consider all of this for the future of our country.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I accept the basic point he has put forward. There is an issue with water treatment in many towns and villages across the country. The population is increasing, which a positive in terms of the progression of Ireland. From a demographic point of view, we are finally turning around the decline that occurred from the Famine era onwards in the context of, perhaps, the country reaching its potential. However, that means more infrastructure, more housing and more wastewater treatment plants. In the context, as I said earlier, of the allocation of revenue coming from the sale of AIB shares and the potential provision of some of the Apple funding, housing and water are key targets for further investment. We can future-proof such investment over the coming years. That would be my thinking on that.

The Deputy outlined the situation in Corofin. I always thought it had the best of water-----

Wastewater.

-----given the prowess of its club, which I know only too well. However, it is a problem. We need to engage again with Irish Water in respect of the allocation of funding for the future with a view to saying that it is not just the bigger cities we want prioritised and that we want towns and villages looked after in the context of wastewater treatment plants. There is a consequential benefit for water quality and a range of other issues.

The zoning of land is important. Some lands are zoned but they simply cannot be developed because of the absence of any enabling infrastructure, such as that relating to wastewater or roads, or because some of the lands in question are not serviced. I believe that, potentially, more zoning should happen to facilitate increased housing targets. The targets we currently have are not ceilings. We exceeded last year's target and we will exceed this year's target in terms of house completions. Supply is the key issue affecting house prices. We need more houses available for people at affordable prices. We accept that we have to do it at a higher scale. Under this Government, we have moved from 20,000 houses built in 2020 to nearly 40,000 being built by the end of this year. That is nearly a doubling of housing output, notwithstanding the interruption of one and a half to two years caused by Covid. However, we need to get from 40,000 houses per annum to 60,000. We can only do that with enabling infrastructure and water is a key element of that. I take on board what the Deputy said.

While I mentioned Corofin, some 30 towns and villages in County Galway are earmarked for wastewater development. At the same time, we are creating restrictions in respect of rural housing. We are telling people they cannot live in the rural areas and telling them to move into the towns and villages. Houses cannot be built there and the urgency is not there. Craughwell in County Galway was allocated funding for a wastewater treatment plant last year. It will probably be another five to six years before this is delivered. That is the reality. The processes we are using are completely out of sync with the housing emergency. We need to see this for what it is. It is an economic-social problem whereby we cannot build houses where they are needed.

Construction has not yet commenced on 50,000 units for which planning permission was obtained last year. Something is going wrong. The private housing market is completely dysfunctional. We need to reduce costs.

We can do this without costing money by looking outside the box and getting more land zoned. Let us tweak the affordable housing scheme. It is a fine scheme and it could work in a lot more areas.

The affordable housing schemes are making progress. A total of 21 local authorities are now actively planning, developing and delivering sustainable affordable purchase schemes with the support of the affordable housing fund. Across the board, a concept that really has only begun in the last number of years has gained traction and momentum and will continue to do so. Do not forget that 50,000 new homes have commenced in the past 12 months. This is the highest number in a long time. We had close to 33,000 housing completions last year. We have to keep driving on. There is a specific issue with towns and villages throughout the country, in addition to the major work that Irish Water is doing. There has to be engagement with Irish Water and local authorities to make sure a portion of the significantly more capital that will be allocated is provided for the towns and villages throughout the country.