Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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627. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if her attention has been brought to an issue (details supplied); the steps her Department has taken to ensure that this issue does not negatively impact job creation in the greater Dublin area; the specific measures that her Department has taken in conjunction with the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government to address this issue; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [29527/16]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The goal of this Government is to support the creation of an additional 200,000 jobs by 2020 with 135,000 outside Dublin. We also want to attract back at least 70,000 emigrants from aboard. This is a whole of Government effort and is delivered through our integrated Action Plan for Jobs. As set out in the Government's enterprise strategy, Enterprise 2025, rising property costs are viewed as posing a significant threat to competitiveness, with a direct link between house prices and upward wage expectations. The affordability of housing matters for the individual household, for society as a whole, and for national competitiveness.

From a competitiveness perspective, housing affordability is a component of Ireland’s ability to compete internationally. It impacts upon the attractiveness of Ireland as a location for investment and directly impacts on enterprise costs through wage effects, and indirectly determines the price of Irish goods and services. The cost of housing influences labour mobility and contributes to an economy’s ability to adjust to adverse shocks. In short, a well-functioning housing and construction sector is critical to the overall health of society and the economy.

As the Deputy will be aware, a very challenging housing crisis exists in Ireland, the root cause of which is an undersupply of housing across all tenures. At an overall level, while 25,000 new homes a year are needed to meet demand, output fell to as low as 8,300 in recent years. At its heart, the Government's Rebuilding Ireland: Action Plan on Housing and Homelessness is about increasing and accelerating housing delivery, across all tenures, to help individuals and families find homes.

In publishing Rebuilding Ireland, the Government has set out a practical and readily implementable set of actions to create a functioning and sustainable housing system. The Plan, which is available at the website , is divided into five pillars, with each targeting a specific area of the housing system for attention.

Pillar 4 of the Plan commits to developing a comprehensive strategy for the rental sector in Q4 2016. The strategy will be structured around 4 key areas: security, standards, supply and services. In developing the strategy, it must be recognised that the rental market faces different challenges in different areas. For example, high rents and excess demand are features of the market in Dublin and in other major urban centres, whereas rents in many rural areas are lower and demand is weaker.

These differences will be taken into account in the development of the strategy, which will lay out measures to address immediate issues affecting the supply, cost and accessibility of rental accommodation.

The overarching objective of the strategy will be to increase the supply of rental homes and support the development of a stable, strong and viable rental sector, offering choice for households and investment opportunities for providers, while reflecting the rights and responsibilities of both tenants and landlords.