I refer to the section of the programme for Government relating to housing supply. For a person seeking a house, it is infinitely preferable to get a local authority house rather than to rent a house under a scheme such as housing assistance payment, HAP. First, it provides secure tenancy for life and second, one can aspire to purchase the house from the local authority if a proper tenant purchase scheme is in place.

How many local authority houses have been built in the past three years?

From a policy perspective, we would prefer not to rely so much on housing assistance payment. However, previous Governments outsourced responsibility for social housing building to the private sector almost exclusively. When that sector collapsed with the financial crisis, there was no one there to build houses and we had to get back into the business of building social housing.

Under Rebuilding Ireland, 50,000 new homes will be added to the social housing stock. However, until 2020 and 2021, there will be more people housed through HAP than in social housing. In those last two years of Rebuilding Ireland, we will place more people from the social housing list into new homes in the social housing stock.

The number of units provided by direct build by local authorities and approved housing bodies was about 2,400 and will be about double that number this year, including some of the units built under Part V provisions. This is not like 20 or 30 years ago. There are several different delivery streams of social housing, including the approved housing body sector, local authorities, long-term leasing and acquisition. All those measures together, as well as the opening of voids this year, will bring almost 8,000 new homes into the social housing stock. The rest of the people on the list who we need to help will have to rely on the housing assistance payment. Last year we helped around 26,000 new tenancies, both families and individuals, through taxpayer-supported social housing supports. That was 23% more than we had intended. Rebuilding Ireland is working. We are ahead of our targets. However, as the Taoiseach pointed out earlier, there is a lot more work to do.

On a related issue, yesterday the Residential Tenancies Board outlined the average rents payable for the first and second quarter of this year. The average rent in Dublin is €1,527, in Meath, Kildare and Wicklow it is €1,104, in Cork and Galway it is €1,000 and for the rest of the country, it is €791. If one compares the maximum rent that is allowed to people who qualify under HAP and the rent allowance scheme, the rent is greater than the allowance in every single county.

In other words, in Dublin the maximum rent allowable under the scheme is €1,200. In counties such as my own county of Kerry it is €575. People who qualify for the housing assistance payment, HAP, and the rent allowance scheme simply cannot get properties they can afford. We are in a dilemma. Unless the Minister increases the allowances under HAP and the rent allowance scheme, none of these qualified applicants will be able to get a property. I ask the Minister to review it in light of the figures published yesterday in order to give people an opportunity.

I thank the Deputy for the question. The Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, released its report for the first quarter of 2018 on rent measures and the rent index and it included some very interesting results. There was a national increase in rents of 0.4%. That is the smallest increase we have seen in 12 months. In Dublin rents increased by only 1% and it was 1.1% in the previous quarter, the last quarter of last year. We are seeing a slowdown in rent inflation. Interestingly in Kildare, Meath and Wicklow we actually saw rents falling. What that means in practical terms is that if one is renting a house one's rent will have increased by approximately €1 over the last three months and if one is renting an apartment it will have increased by approximately €18. We accept that rents are still too high. I accept that. However, there is an uplift of 20% for people who are accessing the housing assistance payment and one can get an additional uplift if one has more family members. If one is at risk of homelessness the uplift is as much as 50%. As a result of bringing in those additional uplifts we are seeing that the HAP is working. We are securing tens of thousands of people into HAP tenancies and every week many more begin receiving HAP.