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

It might be useful to inform the House of how much has been done by the Government while the moratorium has been in place. In the past three to five months, 5,000 new social housing units were built. A further 600 were released, 500 were bought and 1,500 voids were returned to use. An additional 500 emergency beds and 150 cold-weather beds were provided. Nobody can say, at least not factually and honestly, that the Government did not act while the moratorium was in place to provide additional social, permanent and emergency housing, as needed. We decided earlier today not just to allow the moratorium to lapse, as always planned, but to authorise local authorities to buy 1,500 homes in circumstances where landlords are selling and the tenants involved are social housing tenants. To put that into context, we have approximately 1,600 homeless families in the State. The fact that we are willing to buy 1,500 homes from landlords who are selling up in order to prevent people becoming homeless is a significant decision and has to be seen as part of the announcement today.

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