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

There were many questions and I will answer as many of them as I can. First, there has been a lot of general commentary on the need to increase the supply of social housing, to work with local authorities in doing it, to increase funding for it, to streamline planning decisions, to ensure that the Part 8 process works in a streamlined way and to ensure that we are purchasing vacant properties from banks, occupying them and, where possible, acquiring them. All of that is happening. My understanding is that the local authorities spent more than €200 million this year buying more than 1,000 properties. The Housing Agency has purchased in and around 200 vacant properties so far from banks. The legislation, ironically, is doing some of the things that some people were asking for earlier in terms of streamlining the planning process, trying to get larger scale development moving faster and trying to ensure that we get more certainty around decision making and so on.

I understand the frustration. I understand that many people recognise, as do I, that we have a housing crisis which is different in various parts of the country, but we are doing multiple things through a broader housing strategy and a homelessness strategy. Deputies will be glad to hear that we won a court case today to ensure that the Francis St. new emergency shelter can now open. We will now have three new emergency hostels open in Dublin. We started work on those premises on 1 November. The turnaround time has reflected the sense of urgency that has been needed.

The fair deal scheme, which I think was mentioned yesterday by Deputy Róisín Shortall, forms part of the rental strategy. My Department and the Department of Health are reviewing it.

Yesterday, Deputy Smith queried why rent controls. The simple answer is that I think it is appropriate to do it. We are introducing rent controls. I believe that supply will solve many of the problems that we now have in time. Those problems are pent up in a private rental market that is not big enough to meet demand. In time that will change because we will have a dramatic increase in social housing provision through acquisition, bringing voids back into the system, getting vacant properties back into use and building new properties. In the meantime, we need to try to protect tenants from totally unsustainable rent increases.

Deputy O'Brien raised a question about rooms that are rented. The Residential Tenancies Acts cover tenancies in complete rental units. Those who let rooms are not landlords under the Act and are not registered with the Residential Tenancies board and are, therefore, not covered by this measure as defined in the legislation.

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