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

My Department can only take decisions and responsibility directly for those who qualify for social housing. There are broader considerations potentially within Government and the Department of Finance on whether we extend those criteria. There is an ongoing discussion as to whether, for example, we extend income thresholds around social housing eligibility and there are arguments for and against that. What we have done, which is quite a significant change, is we have launched the Abhaile programme whereby homeowners and borrowers can now access, if they are in real difficulty, free legal assistance and free financial advice and assistance. On top of that, for people who have no hope of being able to repay unsustainable loans, there is an obligation on banks to give a very good reason as to why they would not work with a mortgage-to-rent type system. We have widened the eligibility criteria for that in terms of qualification of a property, in that a property with two spare bedrooms can qualify and the value of the property can also be higher but the eligibility criterion for the applicants must be that they qualify for social housing. Otherwise, we get would get into the territory of moral hazard. If we do not have some income limit, we will have people seeking to potentially stay in households when they may have unsustainable debt but also have an income level that could allow them to provide themselves with alterative accommodation without too much difficulty. There are various issues to consider. We have spoken to the Department of Finance about that but the core point is we are significantly expanding the mortgage-to-rent scheme and I hope it will result in a significant increase in numbers.

See this speech in context