Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue because it is one that goes to the heart of the kind of society we are and want to be. The Government is very concerned with the increase in homelessness and it has a comprehensive suite of responses. We need to understand and assess the nature of homelessness in modern Ireland. It is different from what we might have traditionally perceived it to be and it is a changing dynamic all of the time in terms of the presentations on a monthly basis to the emergency accommodation sector, which adds pressure on an ongoing basis.

On the rental protection side, very significant protections have been brought in already to delay any evictions or moving anyone out of homes. We have legislated to increase the notice-to-quit period for tenancies of three years' duration or less, from 28 days to three months. Where there is the risk of a tenant being evicted into homelessness as a result of a landlord selling a home, local authorities have been told by the Minister they can buy those houses to prevent anyone becoming homeless. The resources are there to do that. In addition, the discretionary rate of the housing assistance payment, HAP, has been increased substantially, which will enable tenants to meet any increases in rents. We also have the rent pressure zone caps and so on.

More fundamentally, in terms of the issue the Deputy raised regarding a winter eviction ban, it is not only today or yesterday that these issues are being considered by the Government. We considered that action during the Covid period because of the issues that existed at the time that justified such a winter eviction ban. The Government acted on that. It is just one potential option but it is not the solution. In fact, some of the homeless organisations would accept it is not the solution and, hence, they talk about a temporary winter eviction ban. There are other policy issues that have to be assessed in that context to ensure we have a significant supply into the rental market, which is a concern and a problem in terms of getting more houses back into the market to rent out to people. There has been a steady decline since 2017 in the number of houses that are available for rent. We have to draw conclusions from that in terms of why people are exiting the rental market as small landlords and not maintaining the position of keeping their houses available for rent.

On the social housing front, we will have a record number of social houses built this year. We have to increase that. The target is about 10,000 builds between approved social housing bodies and local authorities on an annual basis. We will get over 8,000 this year, which is an increase, and we want to be consistently above that figure for the next ten years. Every year, we will be doing in and around 10,000 social houses. The Minister acted very quickly in the past two years to bring voids back into use, that is, empty houses that local authorities may have taken time to repair and so on. We all know about that in our different constituencies. The Minister moved very quickly to say we do not want any voids and to give local authorities the resources to bring such houses back into use as quickly as they are vacated for whatever reason. The cost-rental initiative he has undertaken is also proving to be very effective. It took the past 15 to 18 months to get that new scheme up and running and it is proving to be very effective and impactful.

Ultimately, it is about supply. We need to be building more housing and we are doing so.

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