Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The European fiscal rules, which are designed to ensure that countries in the EU maintain sound public finances, are not an insurmountable obstacle to providing the investment required for social housing over the coming years. If they were not there, we would not have to look at other vehicles and ways of funding; we would be able to do it in a much more direct way. The Government, however, has been able to provide significant levels of funding for social housing provision since 2014 and is committed to ensuring that funding for the provision of social housing continues to be prioritised. We have already prioritised in the capital programme almost €3 billion in that regard within the fiscal rules.

There are a number of inbuilt flexibility mechanisms within the fiscal rules to incentivise investment in projects that have lasting growth Impacts. In Ireland's case, there is flexibility around what is called the expenditure benchmark treatment of capital formation, where such expenditure is treated more leniently than other expenditure. This is to help incentivise investment in projects that have long-term positive growth impacts, including new building such as schools, hospitals and social housing.

The programme for a partnership Government provides for a comprehensive range of policy measures to address issues with housing supply, including in respect of social housing. The Government has committed, as part of that programme, as the Deputy knows, to publish an action plan for housing in about three weeks' time, certainly before the end of next month. Our challenge, therefore, and what we have been doing, is to consider creating vehicles that can provide significant funding for social housing. We already have some of those models. Consider what NAMA has been doing in respect of what is called a National Asset Residential Property Services, NARPS, funding model, whereby it essentially builds or purchases and then effectively leases over a long-term period to an approved housing body, which is essentially significant investment into social housing that is off-balance sheet. We are looking to expand on that now, using the financing power of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, to do a lot more of that.

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