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

To respond to Senator Fitzpatrick's point, I am a strong supporter of both tenant in situschemes. I was arguing for the reopening of the social rental scheme immediately after it was closed by Eoghan Murphy. It is not a question of talking it down. It is the very opposite, in fact. We should be talking about it as much as possible. We also need to listen to tenants and landlords who are raising very legitimate observations and concerns about its operation. For example, Dublin City County Council and South Dublin County Council are probably the two leading local authorities in terms of cost-rental tenant in situ. Fingal County Council is doing okay and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is doing quite poorly, in my view. I presume it will be the first quarter of next year when the Minister publishes the county-by-county breakdown of what we assume, on the basis of the figures published yesterday, will be at least 1,300 purchases. We will then be able to compare the county-by-county targets versus delivery and we will get a sense of it. I hear not only from my colleagues but also from individuals who contact my office from other local authorities that it is not being operated with the same energy or flexibility in other local authorities as, for example, we experience in our own local authorities.

I have to disagree on cost-rental tenant in situ. There are number of considerable hurdles we hear about from AHBs, landlords and tenants. The point is not to talk it down. The point is to listen to people who are saying there are problems and let us fix them. The one thing we absolutely agree on is that these are very good mechanisms to prevent people from becoming homeless and, therefore, it is not to politicise the point but just make sure it works as effectively as possible.