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

In terms of social housing, there has been a significant step change. Last year, more than 10,000 social houses were delivered. More than 48,000 social houses have been added to the social housing stock since 2020. We need to do more and we need to build more social houses. The tenant in situ scheme was introduced in 2023. All Deputies have correctly raised that. There was no tenant in situ scheme before 2023. Substantial progress was made in respect of it. There were approximately 1,000 such arrangements in 2023. Approximately 1,800 social homes were acquired in 2023. A thousand of those were for properties where tenants received a notice of termination. In 2024, more than 1,000 notices of termination under the tenant in situ scheme were received. Some €325 million is to be applied this year to local authorities.

There is a sense in the examination of the application of the tenant in situ scheme across the country that not all funding was being used for those for whom it was designed, that is, people in immediate need or those at risk of homelessness because of the termination of a tenancy. There is some evidence that it has incentivised second-hand acquisitions more broadly than was intended. The scheme, therefore, has been refined with a view to trying to get local authorities to focus specifically on those at immediate risk of homelessness and not as a way out for some landlords to sell their houses expeditiously to local authorities.

We have to get the balance right on new builds and acquisitions as well because other Deputies earlier in the day referenced, for example, the fact that in one city in County Limerick, apparently, approved housing bodies were purchasing 60% of their stock as opposed to new builds. The balance has to be gotten right in that respect.

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