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

This debate descends into working class people versus, supposedly, other classes of people whenever Deputy Boyd Barrett raises it. Our job as a Government is to recognise that all types of families and people from different backgrounds and incomes have housing needs. Some of those people, including some in the city centre of Dublin, need the help of the State to be able to live and work in a way that is sustainable and makes sense for them. We are trying to increase the supply of all types of housing to rent or buy and to make affordable housing available. That is why we are examining models such as the cost-rental model in city centre areas.

Rightly, the Deputy raised the pressure of there being fewer rental properties available now than at times in the past. If the proposals the Deputy and others have been making were taken on board by the Government and implemented, however, we would have fewer properties again. That is the reality. In our efforts to solve one problem by alleviating pressures, we create another problem in shutting off the appetite for investment in the kinds of properties we need. Our job is to respond to all of the pressures and challenges at the same time by spending significantly more money to provide social and affordable housing for those who need it in the city centre and elsewhere while also creating an environment in which private money is available to deliver the numbers that are needed, namely, 35,000 to 40,000 housing units across all spectrums on an annual basis. That is where we need to get to. I am afraid the Deputy's policies do not take us there.

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