Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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48. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if his attention has been drawn to the NERI report Ireland's Housing Emergency: Time for A Game Changer, asking the Government to set up a semi-State company to become the main supplier of rental housing, and which would use a cost rental system similar to the one in place in Austria; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17100/17]

Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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68. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if he and his officials have examined the recently published European cost rental model by the Nevin Economic Research Institute; the cost rental pilot he will introduce and the timeframe for this pilot; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16810/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 48 and 68 together.

The recent NERI report Ireland's Housing Emergency: Time for A Game Changer is to be welcomed as an important addition to the debate on housing in Ireland. I note that there is considerable common ground between the NERI report and the Government’s Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan and Strategy for the Rental Sector. For example, and in line with Rebuilding Ireland, the NERI report concludes that: supply is the most significant challenge at present; there is a need to increase public investment in new permanent social housing stock; traditional patterns of demand are changing: increased labour market mobility and wider economic factors are encouraging a lesser reliance on home ownership; a significant proportion of the required new stock needs to be provided specifically for rental; the State needs to create the right conditions for investment in the delivery of rental accommodation; and that local authorities, approved housing bodies and the Housing Finance Agency all have a key role to play in the delivery of housing.

Through Rebuilding Ireland, the Government is progressing a range of actions to meet these challenges. Over the lifetime of the plan, the overall social housing stock will be increased by providing 47,000 social housing units through local authorities and approved housing bodies using €5.3billion in capital funding and Housing Finance Agency loan finance. In addition, under the strategy for the rental sector, a range of supply side measures are being progressed including: build to rent models; use of State-owned lands to deliver affordable rental in areas of high demand; measures to increase the supply of dedicated student accommodation to free-up units in the general rental market; supports to bring vacant stock into use; consideration of tax and fiscal incentives to encourage additional supply.

In addition to the commitment to advancing projects to deliver additional rental accommodation, the strategy for the rental sector noted that the Programme for a Partnership Government contains a commitment to develop a "cost rental" option, taking account of work already completed in this area, including by NESC and others. This is also the central recommendation in the report by NERI.

In line with this commitment, action 12 of the strategy for the rental sector provides that my Department will lead an expert group to develop a cost rental model for the Irish rental sector, addressing issues such as funding mechanisms, the need to grow the necessary institutional capacity, particularly within the AHB sector - whether through mergers, new entrants or strategic partnerships - the households to be targeted and the appropriate regulation mechanisms.  The expert group will consider the proposals put forward by NERI - including the proposal to establish a semi-State company to progress the cost rental model - in the course of its work, which is scheduled to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2017.