Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta as a ceist. Is é Tithíocht do Chách an plean atá againn chun úinéireacht tí a chur i bhfeidhm, a chinntiú go bhfuil rochtain ag gach duine tithíocht ar ard-chaighdeán chun cobhsaíocht a thabhairt do chíosóirí, agus chun daoine atá i mbaol a bheith gan dídean a chosaint. Is cuid dár gcultúr agus dár stair í úinéireacht tí. Ní féidir linn glacadh leis nach mbeidh daoine in ann a gcéad teach a cheannach go mbeidh siad greamaithe i laincis cíosa.

At the outset, I thank the Deputy for her question. As she knows, Housing for All is our plan. It is all about making sure people have a secure home and, ideally, a home that they own if they wish to become a homeowner. Rents in Ireland are very high and a lot of people are struggling to pay the rent and everyone on this side of the House acknowledges this. It hits hardest on people who are moving out of home for the first time, people who are returning to Ireland - about 30,000 people return to Ireland every year - as well as people who are new to the country having come here to work in our public and private sectors. The Government is acting to help. We are helping in four ways that are significant. First, there is a rent tax credit of €500 per renter, €1,000 for a couple, and €1,500 for three people sharing. We have had 170,000 applications already for this rent tax credit. We encourage people who have not applied to do so. It will cover a few weeks' rent for a lot of people and one month's rent in some cases. I hope it is something we can build on in future budgets.

Cost rental, which has been talked about for a long time and was initiated by the last Government, has been made a reality under this Government. It provides cost rental housing that people can rent with secure tenancies at a much lower rent than the market rent. We want to scale that up over the coming years and we intend to do exactly that.

There are rent pressure zones, which most renters are covered by, meaning rent increases are between 0% and 2% per year. The daft.iereport, to which the Deputy referred, shows that rents rose by about 3.8% for existing tenants - the vast majority of tenants - in the past year. This is much lower than the figure of 13.7%, which only refers to new-to-market tenancies.

In addition, the Government is helping people to buy, which is the most significant thing in my mind because we want people to become the owners of their own homes. About 70% of people in Ireland own their own home. I would like to see that figure much higher. That figure is certainly nowhere near that high for younger people. It is probably around half that figure. That is why we want to see more people buying their own home and that is why we are helping. There is the help-to-buy scheme where people get two years' of their income tax back so they can buy their own home. That is a scheme that Sinn Féin promised to take away for first-time buyers. We now have the first home scheme for people who can get a mortgage but do not have enough to buy the house. That gap can be bridged through the first home scheme, something which Sinn Féin has promised to take away if it gets into government. That is why we need to make sure these schemes stay in place.

See this speech in context