Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am not too certain of that, although I will look at it with a small group. My experience, certainly in my Dublin city centre constituency, is that the vast number of those taking rent supplement are in the buy-to-let area, where a single person had bought the property for their pension or otherwise. Some describe them as hobby landlords and, in many cases, that created problems because they did not give a professional service and there was not the required scale.

As Deputy Durkan outlined, there is a real problem of rent inflation within the city centre and we are in constant communication in that regard. I have seen this in the Ringsend-Pearse Street area because of the huge growth in employment in the IT sector. There has also been huge rent inflation in the central Dublin area, which started in the Docklands and has spread out very much from there. Therefore, I am not surprised by Deputy Wallace's point about rent increases in Dominick Street and areas like that.

I am not sure if Deputy Wallace was in the House when I explained this, but we have written to the front-line staff this week, asking them to operate under section 38 and to utilise the flexibility contained therein. The Tánaiste met with senior management and area managers from across the country yesterday to explain that we want to make sure tenancies are sustainable and that nobody would lose their home. We are urging Deputies to use the tenancy protocol that is in operation within the area.

Where that is not in operation, we are looking for a direct connection with community welfare services. My experience is that the people on the ground have a good understanding of what is happening and I am looking for statistics from them on a regular basis to see what is happening within areas and within the market. It is obvious this is happening in Dublin, but it is also happening outside Dublin in places where there is pressure and there has been little built during the recession. I hope the €2.3 billion outlined in the 2015 budget indicates again the start of the capital programme of building local authority houses. I hope this will happen as quickly as possible.

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