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

The Deputy strikes me as a pragmatist in terms of trying to put solutions in place. There are 91,000 people on housing lists across the country. We cannot simply build 91,000 social houses. We are building as many social houses as we can build at a pace that is increasing significantly relative to recent years. A total of 8,500 social houses at various different stages to be constructed have been approved. In the meantime, we need to provide at least 21,000 social housing solutions this year. Part of those numbers will be HAP tenancies which, for the most part, are five or ten-year tenancies that provide suitable accommodation that is far more secure than rent supplement would have been in the past or some other alternative accommodation. Not everybody wants or is looking for a social house. Some people are looking for it while others are not. It depends on their conditions, where they are working and how long they are going to stay there so the mix will always involve the private rental market. I concede that there has been a over-reliance on the private rental market in the past and we need to increase our social housing stock significantly but you cannot do everything overnight. While we will increase our social housing stock by around 50,000 over the next five years, we need to provide many of the housing solutions that require State intervention through initiatives like the HAP.

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