ROBERT MOLLOY TD,
Sir, - Michael Noonan TD is wrong when he says that "there was a drop in the number of new homes built last year" (Opinion, February 15th). In fact, the number of new housing units built last year reached a record level of 52,602, up 5.6 per cent on the previous record achieved in 2000.
This Government has presided over five consecutive years of record housing output and we are building houses at a rate of over 13 per 1,000 population - by far the highest rate of house building in Europe.
The overall priority of the Government in the housing area since taking office has been to increase supply and to tackle house price inflation. Since 1997, we have built over 216,000 new houses and reduced house price inflation from around 40 per cent to 5-6 per cent.
Mr Noonan also bizarrely suggested that "a target of 4,000 new housing starts each year should be set by local authorities". He does not seem to realise that last year there were over 7,000 new housing starts with over 5,000 local authority houses completed or acquired - the highest level of output for over 15 years. On top of this, over 1,200 social housing units were built under the voluntary housing programmes in 2001 - the highest level ever achieved by the sector.
Mr Noonan's target of 4,000 new housing starts by local authorities would involve actually scaling back on this Government's local authority building programme. Is he promising to build fewer local authority houses if he gets into Government? - Yours, etc.,
ROBERT MOLLOY TD,
Minister for Housing
and Urban Renewal,
Customs House,
Dublin 1.