Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

First, in respect of the Deputy's question on the amount of the budget and the amount of money allocated, I wish to make clear that this is flexible. Obviously, as the Deputy herself has described, it depends on how rent pressures can vary from area to area. For instance, I am conscious that in the constituency represented by the Minister of State, Deputy Kevin Humphreys, in the south east of the city centre, the presence of information technology giants such as Google and social media companies has meant there is intense pressure on rents due to the number of people who work in the new industries. Obviously, in County Kildare, companies such as Intel and HP are enormous employers and, again, as the Deputy is aware, there is a huge private market of people in work seeking to rent houses for three or five years. This is one reason for the difficulty in respect of housing supply.

I also wish to say, with regard to the Deputy's comments-----

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