Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Ó Broin asked about the homeless figures. I discussed this with the local authorities last week. I have not seen the figures yet myself. I want to make sure that when we release the figures they are the right figures and we will release them, if not tomorrow then the day after. We will not wait until Friday evening as I think we need to know what these figures are.

As to who is going into permanent housing, I made a request for information on this from the local authorities last week. I requested a breakdown of where people are going to go and of the different streams involved. I will get this information, if not today then certainly tomorrow. The figures are changing on a daily basis because some people are not happy with what they are being offered and that needs to be worked out.

On the issues of mortgage to rent and private equity, we are looking for new streams of financing for the mortgage to rent programme that we currently have. I had a discussion yesterday as to what these new streams might be. I do not want to say too much on this, but the current mortgage to rent scheme concerns people who are also eligible for social housing. We need to find schemes if we can that would also work for people who are not eligible. That is something that we are also going to look at.

With regard to the Housing First tenancies, as I mentioned yesterday, the 100 tenancies are new. We are working to the target of an additional 200. I met the Peter McVerry Trust about this and they also talked of further initiatives that have been brought forward in Canada that might be of use here. We are talking about percentages rather than units and while I have not yet had a chance to look at this, I will.

Senator Boyhan asked about private rental on public land. I have no principled objection to that in terms of what we are trying to deliver. What we want is to ensure that people can afford to rent. If we use public land to build on then it needs to meet the mix of needs that people have. This is something that we are currently looking at.

If I were to answer the many questions asked by Deputy Cowen I would give the game away.