Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have a practical question for the Taoiseach on the housing crisis. Last week, I asked about the tenant in situ scheme, which enables local authorities to take into State ownership homes that have been put up for sale and which would otherwise leave a tenant or family at risk of homelessness. I specifically asked if the Government could legislate to enable the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, to provide data to local authorities to help them identify renters who are most at risk and who might be assisted by the tenant in situscheme. In response, the Taoiseach referred to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage's repeated call on local authorities to buy such homes and operate the scheme and I welcome that 600 homes have been purchased through it. The difficulty is the scheme remains ad hocand merely voluntary. We in the Labour Party are calling for the Government to ensure councils have a stronger imperative to implement the scheme and keep families out of homelessness and to use the period of the winter eviction ban to scale up delivery of homes for people.

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