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

We are increasing, and will continue to increase, public housing stock year after year. I hope we will add 10,000 social housing units this year and that will increase again next year. We will add an extra 50,000 social housing units over the five-year duration of the Rebuilding Ireland programme and the Government is committed to that.

This Government is sometimes painted by some in this House as only having an interest in the private rental market and private purchase sector and that is not true. We are investing billions of euros in social housing because it is needed. There are many who cannot afford private rental prices or to buy their own homes and they need State intervention, assistance and support and they will get that. We do not have enough at the moment and we are trying to correct that as quickly as possible.

People getting notice to quit and that, in turn, driving homelessness is an issue and the Deputy is right to point it out. Many of the families and individuals who come into homelessness have come from the private rental market because they either cannot afford the rent any longer or they face eviction notices. The Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, has responded to that and is introducing a series of amendments to legislation going through the House to add more protections for tenants, and to extend notice periods to give people more time.

I recognised there was an issue and introduced the Tyrrelstown amendment when I was Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government but we must try to balance that with the impact the wrong legislation would have on supply. This is not about prioritising landlords over tenants because we have clearly prioritised tenants over landlords. However, we need landlords and people investing in the private rental market. Without getting the balance right, we will introduce more legislation to protect tenants in a market with a shrinking housing stock. That is a fool's game and it will not work. We need property in the market and to ensure that we have a better regulated, more predictable and consistent rental market in which people can put longer-term tenancies in place. I am in favour of very long-term tenancies, if possible, but that also has to be done with a step-by-step approach, otherwise we would create shocks in the system that would result in a reduction, rather than an increase, in supply at a time it is badly needed.

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