Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I did announce a €58 million mainstream local authority housing programme yesterday. I agree with the Deputy that we need to ramp that up but I do not agree with him that this will solve the problem of rents in the private sector. We will always have a certain number of people who live in private rented accommodation and get support from the State but the problem is that other people who can pay fully for their private rented accommodation are in competition with the people who are subvented by the State and there is just an under supply. I do not think social housing alone will solve that problem. It is part of it but it will not solve the problem as a whole.

We must become much more involved in preventing people becoming homeless when their private rented accommodation is unaffordable for one reason or another. I have set up the oversight group with regard to homelessness and have spoken to Dublin City Council and other local authorities about whether we can establish some kind of preventative system whereby if a family is in danger of becoming homeless, we know that in time to intervene so we do not have to get into the emergency situation. I am working on that.

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