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

We will have a new rental strategy in place by the end of the year. There will I hope plenty of consultation on that with the committee and other parties before we finalise it. Whatever we do we need a fairly comprehensive and more progressive approach to a more stable rental market.

The Housing Finance Agency is trying to get as much money into housing as possible. Our problem is not accessing money, it is how to spend it in compliance with the rules. We can access money through the European Investment Bank and raise it as a State by issuing bonds for virtually nothing. However, spending that money is restricted under the spending rules. People are familiar with that because there have been endless debates in this House about those rules. We need to come up with new financing models that can allow us spend as much money as we can in terms of off-balance sheet vehicles to do that and the Irish Strategic Investment Fund is working on funds and the Housing Finance Agency is also considering what it can do. In the meantime the European Investment Bank is happy to invest significant additional sums in social housing because that meets all of its guidelines and parameters. This is not a grant, it is a loan but over a long period and it is relatively cost-effective. It supports broader European policy around social housing and dealing with the housing crisis in Ireland. The money will be drawn down. The real challenge for us is to find ways to spend more money beyond what we are allowed to spend, even though we are spending a significant portion of what we are allowed to spend overall on housing.

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