Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The general point made by Deputy Adams is one that people will agree with in the sense that the supply of houses is not what it should be, and that is why we have appointed a Minister for housing, planning and local government to deal directly with this area. I have set up a Cabinet sub-committee, which has now met five times and meets again tomorrow.

At each of those meetings, a presentation was given by the relevant Departments with responsibility in this regard, including the Departments of Justice and Equality, Social Protection, Public Expenditure and Reform and Finance and the Department with responsibility for construction, housing and planning. The intention is to draw all the propositions together, including new ones, and have a draft strategy for housing available, presented by the Minister to the Cabinet sub-committee, hopefully, by the end of this month. It would then become a strategy and an action plan to deal with housing.

In respect of Deputy Adams's Private Members' time, and his party's Private Members' business, he is perfectly entitled to put that down but I think, with respect, he is playing politics a little here. The reason I say that is that the Oireachtas Committee on Housing and Homelessness is due to report this Friday. Yesterday, the Minister for housing and planning spoke to the Deputy's own spokesperson and said: "Let us have the debate if you wish but let us suspend it until such time as the Oireachtas housing committee’s report comes in and is debated here". It can feed into the development of the housing strategy, an action plan being prepared by the Minister for housing for debate in the Dáil and for implementation in terms of the supply of housing. However, the Deputy’s spokesperson was not willing to accept that and resume the debate at a later time. He wanted to have a vote on it. In that sense, Deputy Adams is prejudging the outcome and final deliberations of the Oireachtas committee on housing. He is certainly going off in advance of the Government’s response in terms of a housing strategy and an action plan. That is his right if he wishes to do that.

The Residential Tenancies Board's rent index for quarter one of 2016 shows the rate of rent inflation is cooling, with rents up nationally by 0.5% over quarter four of 2015 and by 0.2% in Dublin. This compares with a growth rate of over 1.6% in quarter four of 2015. It obviously does not deal with a situation whereby the number of homeless people on the streets still increases. It is not acceptable that there are many families in hotel rooms and bed and breakfasts. However, the Government is taking action here not just following the appointment of the Minister but, this morning, it also approved a €200 million infrastructure fund for which local authorities can compete to draw down money to open up access to sites that are currently off limits. Many of these are in the greater Dublin area and have the potential for much earlier investment and action on providing houses. That is the real answer to the problem here.

Deputy Adams is entitled to have his vote. The Government will not be supporting his objective in this instance. There is a great deal of work going on. If the Deputy wants to try to pre-empt it by having a vote, that is his right. However, he could have waited.

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