Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. It is not acceptable that so many people in our society are in emergency housing accommodation, particularly children. In respect of children or families with significant medical issues, there is recourse to local authorities in the interests of prioritising the housing of such families. I do not know the background to each of the individual cases, and I did not see the programme last evening. In a situation where a child is facing open-heart surgery, there are opportunities for the relevant local authority to prioritise that case. Medical cases are prioritised by local authorities across the country.

The bottom line is that we have to increase supply significantly. Banning no-fault evictions sounds great, but it would ultimately have a negative impact on rental supply and would lead to less supply. One of the challenges we have is to try to get many more people back into the rental market, either in the context of offering short-term lets or alternative forms of letting as opposed to offering secure, long-term rentals to those who are on the housing list. The Government will continue to address this issue in terms of legislation. It has to be addressed.

The supply issue is key, both in terms of the private rental market but also in terms of public and social housing. Without question, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of social houses in the country over the past four years. It has been quite exponential in comparison with anything that has happened since the early 2000s or even before that. There will be a strong and continuing focus on social housing. Since July 2020, approximately 42,000 social homes have been added to the social housing stock. In quarter 3 of last year, we saw the highest level of delivery of new-build social housing since 1975. That is the key. We opened a facility in Mallow last week with the Focus Ireland housing association at which housing for 13 families was provided. These are people who came off the housing list. Some of them had been homeless. If we add in acquisitions and leasing, approximately 12,000 social homes were delivered in 2023. There are many more social houses in the pipeline, starting this year and moving into 2025.

We need a consistent number of new builds of approximately 10,000 per annum to deal with the emergency housing and homeless situation to make sure the time that people spend in an emergency home is as short as possible.

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