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

The Deputy and I have had this debate many times in the House. He is right on one thing. Overly relying on rental supports is not a long to medium term solution for the housing challenges we face. Supply is the solution, with more social housing, more affordable housing, more targeted and tailor-made solutions for people who need housing and who want to own and pay for their own homes but need the support of the State to do so, and people who want to be in the rental market and need supports to be there.

The truth is that there has been an over-reliance on HAP in recent years because we simply have not been able to deliver enough new builds at the pace needed. This is a simple and practical problem. We are now committing to spend €4 billion on housing each year but it takes time to build significant numbers of houses. We will provide approximately 10,000 social housing units per year, as well as affordable housing on top of this which, in time, will have a huge impact on responding to housing need.

The Deputy cannot on the one hand say we should not be continuing to spend more and more money on HAP and at the same time make the case for increasing thresholds and increasing the amount of money tenants can get. This is a contradiction. In many ways, HAP is an emergency response for people while the State builds a housing stock that responds to the extraordinary demands we are seeing at present. This is what we will do in the coming years. Next year, in 2022, there will be 11,800 social homes delivered, including 9,000 new social housing builds. This year, in 2021, there will be 12,750 new social homes, including 9,500 new builds, 800 targeted acquisitions and 2,450 homes through leasing programmes.

I can remember clearly when I came into the Department with responsibility for housing. Deputy Kelly was the Minister prior to me. We were faced with trying to reignite a building sector to build huge quantities of housing stock from a completely flat start. I think, and I stand to be corrected, that the year before I became Minister with responsibility for housing, all of the local authorities combined built 75 social houses. Now, that figure is 7,000 or 8,000. This is something that will take time to fix. In the meantime, we need to support people in rental accommodation through HAP and other solutions which are there.

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