Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The housing assistance payment plan has worked to date and we have been able to secure accommodation for people who need our help using this support. Where we have encountered difficulties, we have put in place things like the HAP place-finder service which we are now rolling out nationally.

That will help with issues such as the deposit and the first month's rent, which is important. I also introduced homeless HAP, which allows for greater flexibility to both keep people in their accommodation and prevent them from falling into emergency accommodation and services and to help those who have left accommodation to return to secure accommodation through these supports. The changes we have made in rolling out HAP have helped us to make sure the scheme is working and we will continue to make changes as needed to make sure we get the delivery from the scheme that we require. Approximately 20,000 landlords and agents are working with us to help more families and individuals into HAP accommodation. What the Deputy reads on daft.ieor on the rental market is not a true reflection of what might be available in HAP supports.

The RPZs are the high demand areas and that will help us with massive inflation in rental costs over the period of the zones. The trend in the first two quarters of data for this year tells us that rent inflation this year versus last year will be approximately half. That will help us again to meet our HAP targets going into next year if that trend continues for the final two quarters of this year and into next year.

New homes are being built. One dataset, which is not complete, shows an exceptional increase in September in comparison to the previous month based on year-on-year projections. Those new homes will come on line.

The Minister of State referred to the repair and lease scheme. It has not worked to date in the way we wanted it to and changes are coming shortly. I will announce those even though Deputy Cowen said he does not want to hear any more announcements.

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