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

As I have not had an opportunity to hear about or read it in full, I would prefer not to comment on it until I have done so. I cannot argue with the fact that approximately 10,000 people live in emergency accommodation in Ireland. While there will always be a certain number who will need emergency accommodation for different reasons, 10,000 is far too high which I do not deny for one second. It concerns all of us in government greatly. We lift thousands of people out of homelessness every year; we take them out of emergency accommodation and provide them with secure tenancies, but as quickly as we are able to house people, roughly the same number become homeless. That is why we have not been able to get the number down from 10,000 for the past year. The solution is more supply. We need more homes and apartments. Last year 18,000 new homes were built. They are new houses and apartments that did not exist this time last year. There were more new houses built than in any of the past ten years, which is very significant, but we need to do better again. We need approximately 25,000 new homes this year and 30,000 in the year after. I do not see it as ideological, as Deputy McDonald does. I do not see it as social housing versus private housing, people on the housing list versus those who want to buy and the private sector versus the public sector. I do not see it in that way. We need more housing, including more social housing, and are getting it, with 9,000 units added to the social housing stock last year and 10,000 or more this year. We need more private housing that people will be able to buy. That means working with the private sector and the construction sector to deliver them because most people want to own their own home. They do not want the Government to own it for them. It also means having a much better, more regulated rental sector, which is why we introduced things like rent caps and are bringing forward more tenancy rights.

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