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

That is not what I said but I might get an opportunity to come back on that in supplementaries. The Residential Tenancies (Deferment of Termination Dates of Certain Tenancies) Act 2022 was a time-limited intervention which provided for a stay on eviction notices up to 31 March 2023 and deferred tenancy terminations running to 18 June. It was on a phased basis. The purpose of it was to protect renters during that specific period, provide additional protection, allow local authorities the time to bring further emergency accommodation into operation - which we did - and provide the space for more permanent accommodation. Some 6,000 social homes were completed in quarter 4 of last year.

The staggering of the ending of the ban, coupled with new measures aimed at preventing homelessness, appears to have been effective in terms of preventing any drastic increase in entries into homelessness. My Department has been closely monitoring the rate of new entries into homelessness since the scheduled ending of the ban and the rate of increase remains lower than in the period immediately prior to its introduction. That is important to note. For instance, in March 2023, when the moratorium was still fully in effect, there was an increase of 246 individuals in emergency accommodation. It is no consolation to them and I am not playing with figures but the reality is that the June increase was 182. There was a larger increase during the last month of the moratorium than there was last month.

The reason is that we have been able to exit more people into permanent social homes from emergency accommodation as we are building more social homes. I will cover that in more detail in my supplementary response. As I mentioned in a response to a previous question, we had to be careful because any further intervention in the private rental sector would have had the effect of more and more properties being lost in that sector and making the situation worse, which I think most people understand.

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