Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----rent supplement. Everyone who is renting deserves the protection of the State in term of the standards that they should expect from private rental accommodation. That should apply to social tenants in the same way as to private tenants. Obviously there is a risk there, which is the reason we have an inspection system. The figure I got is that there is an inspection always within eight months of a tenancy to make sure that what we are being told is being provided by a landlord and what a local authority is paying for is actually being delivered.

The Deputy made many comments about rapid-build provision, but rapid build is not necessarily a preference. This is about getting houses built quickly for people because we have a huge demand. The majority of rapid-build units, just as in Poppintree, will be a temporary, short- to medium-term solution while longer-term housing need is provided for, unless we decide to start using rapid-build technology to get social housing estates built faster, which I expect will probably happen because that is the way the building industry is going. It is not that with rapid-build only two-bedroom houses are built and they are the only ones being built. That is not what we are talking about here.