asked the Minister for Local Government if he can state the total number of people in Ireland who are awaiting public housing.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Housing Needs.
34.
I would refer the Deputy to the recent White Paper, Housing in the Seventies, which gives, in Chapter I, a digest of available information regarding present housing needs.
Could I ask the Minister whether he is aware that in that publication to which he refers it is stated that the number of overcrowded dwellings was reduced only from 63,000 to 59,500 in the five years to 1966 and that at that rate it would take 85 years to clear overcrowding unless that rate could be improved, and that the failure in this period to improve upon the position by a greater amount is attributable to the fact that for ten years the Fianna Fáil Government failed to build as many local authority houses as were built in 1957 and could I ask the Minister——
The Deputy is making a speech on housing.
——when he proposes to increase the amount of public authority house building to the level it was after the first Coalition Government, which would require a two-thirds increase in the present amount of local authority housebuilding?
The Deputy should read the document again and he may understand it next time.