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

First, I wish the Deputy well. This may or may not be the last occasion on which we have an opportunity for questions on a Thursday morning, but I thank her for her courtesy and respect in her capacity as leader. I thank her and her colleague, Deputy Shortall, for their commitment to the public good and public interest as leaders of their party. Through very challenging times during Covid-19 and so on, they put the nation first ahead of their party. I will always appreciate that. The public health interest in particular was always a key consideration of theirs and I appreciated that.

In respect of the eviction ban, the Government is examining this not just from a legal perspective but from a policy perspective also. Deputy Catherine Murphy has connected this to homelessness correctly, but the broader picture is supply of housing and supply of units for rental and to be rented. The fundamental policy issue we have to consider is if we extend it, and I do not think we could extend it for a short-term because we need to be honest with the market and with those who are renting as well, what would the impact of that be on supply? Would it make it worse? I put that honestly to the Deputy. Politically, the simple catch cry is "extend the ban, extend the ban" and then worry about the consequences later or indeed the consequences would be the Government's problem and the Government's fault in the sense of policy research coming back saying we risk reducing supply and we risk increasing rents as a consequence of reducing supply and it makes matters worse.

The parallel with that is that we have increased supply through building houses. The State is the biggest actor in house building at the moment. Through financial supports given to approved social housing bodies, local authorities, cost-rental schemes, Croí Cónaithe, Project Tosaigh, and help to buy, there are a variety of schemes. The first home scheme is proving to be extremely popular with more than 3,000 registrations now. Some 30,000 homes were completed last year, that is an increase of 10,000 on the previous year, and the largest since 2008.

On the other hand, the eviction ban did work during the winter period. We had a particular argument over the winter period because of the crisis caused by the energy situation which gave a very solid legal basis to a winter emergency ban on evictions, because of the position people found themselves in on a number of fronts particularly on inflation and the energy crisis itself. All of those issues will be evaluated by the Government and we will make the decision prior to the expiry date of the ban. Of course the new law we introduced in the context of the eviction ban staggered the end of the protections afforded in the legislation out to June in order to ensure there would be no cliff-edge impact on 1 April. We are giving this very serious consideration from a policy point of view and are mindful of some of the negatives it could have on the wider sector.

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