Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have no difficulty whatsoever describing the housing shortage or the homelessness crisis as an emergency. We would not be spending €140 million a year providing emergency accommodation in hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation and family hubs for 10,000 people if it was not an emergency. It is an emergency, but declaring it an emergency does not solve the problem and does not allow us to build houses or apartments more quickly or to provide one more house more quickly for any family. I am happy to declare it an emergency, but that is rhetorical. That will not solve the problem and make things better for any citizen in the State.

The reason that we do not support some of the proposals being put forward by the Opposition is not because they come from the Opposition, but because we believe they would make a bad situation worse. If the Opposition was in charge of this problem, it would make a bad situation much worse. Imposing very hard rent caps, for example, would mean that there would be fewer rental properties built. There would be fewer people willing to rent out their properties and to enter the buy-to-let market. That would have the effect of freezing the market. One might protect a certain number of people from rent increases, but it would make it virtually impossible for new people to rent. Similarly, the effect of other proposals made by the Opposition would cause us to have less supply in the housing market. My contention is that this is an emergency and the Government is acting, but we are not getting the results we need so we need to do more. I am, however, absolutely convinced that if we were to accept the Opposition proposals, such as the ones that Deputy Doherty put forward, we would make a bad situation much worse.