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

I acknowledge that we have a very significant shortage and deficit of housing in Ireland and that the country is experiencing a very deep housing crisis that affects people in many ways, whether high rents, rising homelessness or the difficulty many people face in being able to buy their first home. The housing crisis is a reality for many reasons. These are a rapidly rising population, smaller household sizes which mean we need more homes and a prolonged period during which very little housing was built after the crash in 2008. We are catching up on that deficit now and I will give a few examples. Last year 30,000 new homes were built, more than any year in ten or 13 years. There has been very significant progress there. We expect to meet our housing targets again this year. Last year more social housing was added to the housing stock than in any year since the 1970s. The recent census figures show the percentage of households benefiting from social housing increased in the past ten years and not down. This totally destroys the argument that this Government and the previous Government were somehow uninterested in social housing.

Some 40,000 more families are in social housing than there were ten years ago. The percentage of people benefiting from social housing has gone up, not down, which proves that this Government and the previous one have been committed to social housing.

We are making progress on homeownership too. More than 1.2 million families now own their own homes in Ireland. About 400 first-time buyers are buying their first homes every week. That is because of the actions the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has taken. For example, the help-to-buy scheme helps people to get their deposit. The local authority home loans help people to get a loan if they cannot get one from the bank. There is huge interest in the new grants that are being offered to bring derelict properties back into use as new homes. There are other measures, particularly championed by this Minister, such as first home, a new scheme that bridges the gap between the mortgage one can get from the bank and the cost of buying the home one wants to buy. All of those things are making a difference. That is why we are seeing more people buying their first home every week than at any period since the Celtic tiger. We are catching up on a huge deficit and it will take time for us to get ahead of it.

The rent credit was in the budget. It is €500 for a single person, €1,000 for a couple and €1,500 if there are three people renting. As is the case with any tax credit, people have up to four years to claim it. It is hard to know exactly how many are entitled to it. We think about 400,000 people are entitled to it. About half have claimed it. Others can claim it too. We will be advertising it and putting out further information for the Revenue Commissioners to make people know that is available.

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