Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief. To rent over a ten-year period will cost the State and the tenant a great deal of money. Houses are cheap now. We built thousands of houses during the recessions of the 1930s and 1950s. A tenant will not have a permanent home. Building or buying would provide that home. The local authority would have a valuable asset to rent for years, after which it could sell the house to the tenant. This is another pot of money for the State.

In my local authority area, the amount spent on housing maintenance is €700,000. The rent accruing - this will increase substantially within the next month and on 1 January 2015 - is €3.5 million, some five times the maintenance. The capital cost of the loans must be paid but, despite the low rents in County Laois, this is a substantial revenue stream as well as a means of housing people.