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

I thank the Deputy for his contribution and his questions. We have used every mechanism available to us to try to increase the number of new homes being built. That is the reason we spent more money last year than had been spent as a State in any of the previous years, and that includes the boom years when we were building far too many houses. It shows the scale at which delivery is now happening in terms of public housing and the taxpayers' money that is going towards that.

To answer some of the Deputy's specific questions, in regard to student refunds, very early on I raised that issue with the representative of the university sector. I also raised it with the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Joe McHugh. The Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, is dealing with student-related issues. I have a figure in front of me that indicates that it has dealt with some 59 cases over the emergency period where students who had an issue were able to go to the RTB and have their cases heard by the RTB. It is important that they can do that. Unfortunately, some student agreements are not like the normal agreement that might come under the Residential Tenancies Act. I refer to the traditional rental agreement one might have over a 12-month period and the different aspects that then come in when one acquires Part 4 rights because of the nature of student accommodation. It is only for eight or nine months in a year, for example, and it is linked to academic terms and issues like that. It absolutely has been more of a difficult experience in that position.

In regard to the University of Limerick, UL, it is not something I have been able to become involved in. I am not responsible for university funding. It does not fall under my Department so I am afraid I cannot speak to that.

As to extending the rent freeze, as I mentioned earlier, it is in place now until essentially the end of June so there is plenty of time between now and then to get our ducks in a row, as necessary, and to make the right decision based on the information available to us. When we put the freeze in place, one of the important things I wanted to do was to make sure it could be extended by ministerial order. We could see the risk that was coming with us not being able to form a Seanad if a new Government was not in place and I did not want anyone to find themselves caught out by that fact, so they will not be. A Minister at the time will be able to extend that order even if a Government has not been formed. That protection is there for them. I mentioned to Deputy Ó Broin how I foresaw that as being likely but I do not want to pre-empt the decision that needs to be taken by Cabinet and when we have the necessary information in front of us to make that decision.

Regarding direct provision, even though we are not responsible for direct provision in the Department we have got expertise in securing accommodation and those types of issues in terms of getting the agreements that are necessary in place. We have worked with the Department of Justice and Equality to help it secure additional accommodation for people in direct provision.

The 18 May date for the return of construction is for retrofitting also. It is for outdoor building work. Retrofitting is a very important part of that. We had very ambitious plans before the crisis for retrofit programmes. We have allocated money to it.

We absolutely want to use that money to get people back into work where we can.

In regard to the housing assistance payment scheme, we have had that debate a number of times in the House. The situation was that not enough homes, or basically no homes, were being built. Just over 600 social housing homes were built in 2016. The HAP scheme had to be introduced or else all of those people would have nowhere to go. Even though we now have the HAP scheme, we still have just under 10,000 people in emergency accommodation. There was no other solution at the time which was going to fill that gap until new homes were built. Since then, we have dramatically increased the number of new homes being built or added to the social housing stock. As a result, from next year on, we will be accommodating more people in the social housing stock than we will accommodate through new HAP agreements. That rebalancing is happening and it is because we are taking a State-led approach. The Deputy and I have a difference of opinion on that but the numbers will speak for themselves when it comes to Rebuilding Ireland.

In regard to the use of public land, it is my view that public land should be used towards the public good. That does not just mean pubic housing but mixed housing developments including cost rental, affordable to buy, social housing and private housing. That makes sense and is good planning for community and everything else. That is why we are taking the approach to public land that it is not exclusively for social, affordable and cost rental housing. We are trying to have a mix of housing. The real debate is over what that mix should be, whether 50:50 public-private or 70:30. The Land Development Agency will have powers to make that determination on a site-by-site basis depending on the wider community. That is good because we do not want politicians interfering as, unfortunately, they sometimes do when they object to a development because it is a particular type or scale of housing. We have to protect the system as we seek to make improvements to it.

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