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

I thank the Deputies for their questions. I was asked about concerns from businesses in relation to the housing crisis. It is certainly something that has been raised with me many times, certainly during my time as the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. I hear the concern being expressed by businesses regarding the housing crisis impacting on their ability to recruit and retain staff and to attract staff in from abroad. Having met with representatives of businesses on many occasions to discuss this and other matters, they do acknowledge that this is a problem being faced in other fast-growing economies as well. The multinationals will say this is the same problem they face in San Francisco, Vancouver or Lisbon. They are not saying that we are the only people facing this problem. We must respond to it, mainly by increasing additional housing provision, which is what we are doing.

It is important, however, to put it in a factual context. We do have 2.57 million people at work in Ireland. This is more than ever before. Unemployment is close to an all-time low at around 4%, while youth unemployment is at an all-time low. We had a record number of jobs created by the IDA in Ireland last year and record levels of trade and investment last year. The housing crisis may well be impinging on our capacity to grow but not so much that we are not regarding record growth and numbers of jobs. It needs to be seen in that factual context.

Deputy Barry again asked what we have done in the past few months during the period of the eviction moratorium. I have set this out for the record of the Dáil and it is important to do so again, because I cannot accept the non-factual narrative that the Government sat on its hands and did not do anything in the past few months. This is simply untrue. Just in the fourth quarter of 2022, 5,000 new social housing units were built, 600 were leased, 500 were bought and 1,500 voids were brought back into use. Additional emergency accommodation was also sourced, providing 650 beds. This is a huge amount that has been done during that period and we announced today that we are going to do more. We are authorising local authorities to purchase 1,500 homes where the landlords are selling up-----

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