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

The Deputy has this ideological perspective that the State has to control all this land and property. We are going to increase significantly the State's stock of social housing and we will build that increased stock as quickly as we can. We have funding in place of more than €5 billion for the next five years to do that. On top of that, we want to learn lessons from the past, to put secure and sustainable tenancies in place for families and individuals who need the help of the State to do that. The most efficient way to do that is to pursue the course of action we are taking, which is to shift people from rent supplement, over time, onto the HAP scheme and to take on many extra people who, unfortunately, cannot afford to secure tenancies in the private rental sector but are happy to rent as long as they have support from the State. That is where the HAP scheme comes in. From the take up of the HAP scheme to date and from the feedback we are getting on it, it is very positive. Perhaps in Dublin the approach to the HAP scheme is a little different. That is because it has not been rolled out in Dublin yet, except in one of the local authorities. We will be able to judge that much more accurately this time next year when we have it rolled out across Dublin.

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