Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Deputy's concern about the duration of mine and the Government's honeymoon.

I do not think there has been a honeymoon at all but I appreciate the Deputy's interest and concern in that regard.

Homelessness is something the Government feels very deeply about and it is a matter we have prioritised. Since 2012 or so, the funding put into services for people who are homeless has doubled or even more than doubled. We are going to have an 18% or 20% increase in homelessness services spending next year and the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government will either today or tomorrow announce a major increase in the number of beds available for rough sleepers so there can be a surplus number of beds available for them. That is particularly important over the winter. We have also put much work into developing family hubs to ensure there are no families or children on our streets and the numbers of those in bed and breakfasts and hotels falls. It has fallen since its peak in March. From there we will look to moving people from family hubs to new housing, and approximately 80 or 100 individuals and their families are every day being provided with housing by the State through different mechanisms. These are new tenancies.

I read something about the Leeside apartments in the newspapers but I do not know all the details and I am loath to comment on something I am not fully informed about. The Minister has committed to changing or clarifying the rules around substantial refurbishment so they are not abused by landlords and they do not misuse this as a mechanism to evict people after carrying out minor refurbishments and increasing rents. The Minister intends, if not this week then next week, to clarify exactly what substantial refurbishment means.

With landlords in general, it is particularly cruel to seek to give somebody a notice to quit or an eviction notice in the run-up to Christmas. I absolutely condemn that. At the very least, if the apartment block genuinely needs refurbishment, I am sure it could be left until the new year and the people living there could be given adequate and reasonable time to find new homes.

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