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

This emphasis on permanent tenancies might be a bit of a misdirection. Often the people who are actually in those homes the Deputy has identified are in more secure living arrangements than people in the private rental sector. They will never exit those arrangements and move into homelessness. They will never find themselves in emergency accommodation, because the local authority's duty of care as a landlord means that it cannot allow that.

The second point I would make is that the overall number of people in emergency accommodation is lower than we thought it was. A significant number of people were in homes and not in emergency accommodation. That is about as clear as I can be on it.

In relation to student accommodation, we are finalising the rent Bill at the moment. We will publish the Bill and on Committee Stage we will bring an amendment addressing student accommodation. We have time to work on that amendment. The Deputy and I have had meetings on this. I know how interested he is in it.

I will also address the shortening of the approval process. Though some people say summits do not achieve anything, one of the outcomes of the housing summit is that we are going to agree an internal specification for social housing. A standard internal specification will shorten timelines. I will not agree a standard external specification, but why not agree an internal specification? Perhaps Deputy Ó Broin has visited some of the new social housing builds recently. They are fantastic.

The Deputy mentioned a proposed two-stage approval process. We can do more with a one-stage process. I will not say any more than that.