Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Sorry, but we do not control the Dáil schedule and other difficulties have led to its delays. We want to get the right Bill with the right impact. We want it to help. Everybody has been working very well on the rent Bill. We want to help people out of emergency accommodation and we will do everything we can as long as it does not make the position worse or where unintended consequences would make things too risky. We are open to continuing suggestions and that is why there will be more funding this year. It is why the rent Bill is there and we have hired more prevention officers for the local authorities in Dublin. It is why we have the inter-agency group and new proposals brought to the Cabinet by the Taoiseach only a couple of a weeks ago. We have to continue to do more and I am open to all suggestions to help us do it. The numbers are not yet going in the right direction. However, as I said earlier, the increase we saw last year was not as huge as it was in the preceding two years. This lends to what the Dublin local authorities have been saying, which is that the position for families has stabilised. That is a positive. It means we might be able to continue what we saw for the past two months, which is more families exiting than entering homelessness. That is what we want to see and how we will find ourselves getting families out of emergency accommodation and driving down those numbers.

The Deputy mentioned the four-stage approval process. Right now there are approximately 5,000 houses being built on just under 200 sites. We have a unit in the Department working with each local authority on any site-specific issues. The bond element is a crucial stage in the planning process in terms of the interaction between my Department and each local authority. No national issue has been brought to my attention relating to that stage not being followed or something happening. If the Deputy has a specific site or sites in his own local authority area where there are issues, he can share them privately. It has not been raised with me as a national issue.