Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In new builds. That would be my preference, but the real issue is to include in those regulations a date by which they have to be out.

Perhaps I did not explain my question on co-living clearly enough so I will go through it again because the Minister did not answer it. Consider a situation where an institutional investor comes in and gets planning permission to build a co-living facility, as the Minister describes them, which is then inhabited by the kinds of people the Minister has said might choose to live there. If at a later stage another institutional investor comes along and purchases not just individual units but the entire block, this is the point at which many of us would be concerned. Depending on what is happening in the market and the intentions of that institutional investor, the accommodation could go from providing relatively high-end and high-cost short-term accommodation for emerging professionals to providing accommodation for very vulnerable people. It could descend into tenement type accommodation. I do not hear anything as to how the Minister would prevent that from happening. Is it a concern? Does the Minister believe it is an aspect he should be looking at?

The Rebuilding Ireland target for new home completions is very clear. It is an average of 25,000 over the lifetime of the plan. It means that we will not get 25,000 over the first or second years, but we will have to reach 25,000 by the third year and then exceed that. The Minister is behind in this. The plan may catch up, and we will have to wait and see, but it would be more straightforward if the Minister would at least admit that he is behind and that there is a lot of catching up to do.

On the legal definition of housing needs, I can argue for and make the case for any definition I choose. I do not accept that people who are in receipt of HAP have their long-term social housing needs met. I accept that HAP is a short-term benefit support, and I accept that we will always need a housing benefit of that kind, but these people have a real long-term social housing need. The best way to test if people on HAP would choose to remain on HAP or go for social housing is to put them back on the list and let them make that choice themselves. The way the system has been set up under legislation, which Sinn Féin opposed, presents a problem where people do not have the choice they would have if amendments were made to the legislation in the way I would like to do it.

The Minister often tries to deflect criticism by accusing us of personalising the issue, as if somehow I was making personal attacks on him and his character. Deputy Murphy is the Minister. He is responsible. Therefore, when people here criticise the things he does, it is because he is the Minister and we do not think he is doing the job correctly. That is not personalising the issue. It is called holding him to account. If he does not like it, that is fine, but I will not make any apologies for criticising either the things he does because I believe they are the wrong things to do or the things he says. Of course he will defend his actions and words, but if he is suggesting that somehow we should not criticise him because that does not play well with the voters, I am sorry but I have a job to do here and I will continue to do it. Where he does things wrong or says things that are inappropriate, I will do my best to hold him to account, and I think the public will thank the committee for doing that into the future.

Lastly, just so the Minister knows, some local authorities are not accepting or processing new Rebuilding Ireland home loans. South Dublin County Council currently is not.