Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is part of the Trotskyite dialogue to always blame some outside force, but there is a connection between the policies that were followed and the results that were achieved. The policies followed by the Greek Government ended up with the country on the brink of disaster. The Greek Prime Minister of the day realised this and sacked his finance Minister, and a different set of policies have been followed since. The Deputy should not shake his head when a country that applied a successful formula is now growing very rapidly.

One of the reasons for the housing crisis is the fact that the country is growing very rapidly. One of the reasons for the housing crisis is that so many young people have jobs in this city and they want to form families. That is where the demand is coming from, by and large. It is also coming from some emigrants coming home and migrants coming in. That is the way it works. It is very hard, as Deputy Rabbitte says, to flick a switch and get 10,000 houses overnight. It is going to be difficult because the building and development industry, of all the sectors in the economy, was the most fractured. It is still fractured, but we are working very hard to remediate it and get traction on this issue.

I would be first to admit that the amendment is narrow in its focus, and it is intended to be so. It will be narrow in its results and it is intended to be so. It is designed specifically to deal with an issue raised by the voluntary organisations. Landlords found it more profitable to rent to tenants other than tenants on rent supplement, and this was leading to homelessness. People had their leases discontinued and they could not get new leases from other landlords. I hope it works, but it is one of those cases in which we will have to see what happens in practice. It has been welcomed and there is sufficient traction for it to work as intended. Of course, it will not solve the housing problem, as it is one contribution. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, and I have announced a series a measures.

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