Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The suite of measures is in place, and not just for HAP and RAS tenants. There is the cost-rental purchase scheme for tenants in situ. As I said, we have had our first approvals in that space and that has been managed by the Housing Agency. The other piece of work we have to do is the right of first refusal, about which we will bring forward legislation to the House in advance of the summer. A very significant change will be made there. Fundamentally, across all tenures, we need to increase supply. We did that significantly last year when there were almost 30,000 new builds and 10,253 new social homes.

For that lady who was in contact with the Deputy and who spoke of a child who had to move to four different schools, that speaks to the issue of there not being enough supply up to now to be able to provide secure and safe homes for people. Earlier this week, I was in Laois and Offaly, where we opened more than 200 new homes. There are really significant programmes on the ground there. That is the solution to it. I wish to assure the Deputy and tell tenants who find themselves in that situation to make contact with their local authorities because the local authorities have a full suite of measures. They are not restricted in relation to capital investment or funding.

The targets I set were baseline targets. There is no ceiling on this. Where Deputies receive specific cases, we have set up a contact line and have a secretariat in place under the management of Peter Carey in order that those cases can be brought to us and they will be looked at specifically.

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