Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is happening. Allow me to go through the points because it is the public out there who are homeless and I want them to know what is there rather than us shouting and roaring across the Chamber.

Second, if someone is above the social housing income limit, there are two schemes coming on board now. Deputy Boyd Barrett referred to one. The bespoke scheme will come into operation on 1 April and the first opportunity to purchase will also come into being on 1 April on an administrative basis. The Minister wrote to the local authorities last Friday on foot of decisions in relation to the vote here last Wednesday that these measures would be implemented. They are required to come back to the Minister by 31 March, only days away, to give plans on the numbers of houses that they have in train for tenant in situand what their future plans are. Deputy Cian O’Callaghan also spoke about tenant in situ. He spoke about repeat announcement. We are telling local authorities that we want them to exceed the target as high as they can. We want no one to be homeless.

I spoke about the two schemes, namely the bespoke scheme and the first opportunity to purchase. We want landlords to come forward to local authorities. The first port of call for landlords who wants to sell their house should be the council. The first port of call for tenants is the council regardless of whether they are HAP, RAS or a private tenant. If a landlord wishes to sell his or her house to a tenant in situ who is above the social housing limit, they should go to the local authority. The first port of call for someone who wants to sell their house to the council where there is a tenant who is above the social housing limit is the local authority. The funding is there to purchase these homes. We want to keep people out of homelessness. That is very important. We are looking at where the RTB would make tenants and landlords aware of all the various schemes available.

On delivery, we want to deliver a lot more houses than we have built to date but we have made a major start. Sinn Féin comes in here but outrage is not a substitute for hard policies. I have not seen one tangible, viable proposition from Sinn Féin.

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