Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to clarify one item for the Deputy. He said the €4 billion includes the housing assistance payment, HAP. There is €4 billion of capital committed to the year 2020. The Deputy said nothing has changed. A great deal has changed in the past year. The Construction 2020 strategy will address many of the deficits in terms of housing provision throughout the country. We are only now seeing the construction sector getting back to some level of normality in terms of construction. We were building 90,000 houses a year, which was unsustainable. We need to get that back to some level of sustainability. In addition, in the coming weeks the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Kelly, and I will announce hundreds of schemes throughout the country for direct build, the very schemes for which the Deputy is calling, but they cannot be built today or tomorrow. In the meantime, we have to bridge that gap through schemes such as the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and the HAP because the houses cannot be "magicked" out of the air. That is what the Deputy is calling for but that cannot be delivered overnight so we have to provide for the very people he is talking about, and we will provide for them through the provision of RAS and HAP.

This will bring benefits in terms of certainty in rental standards administered by the local authority at the same differential rental rate as the local authority. These supports are in place. The Private Residential Tenancies Board is supporting people in private accommodation under threat of eviction. Also, the Department of Social Protection will engage with them on a case by case basis to assist them. I want to be clear that there is support for people under threat of eviction and we in the Government and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government will support them also.

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