The Minister first became a Minister in the Fine Gael-Labour Party Government in 2011. This was the Government that in its programme said it would eradicate homelessness in five years. That Government made a decision in June 2011 to discontinue capital investment in social housing and to rely instead on the outsourcing of social housing to the private sector. Since 2011, average rents have increased from €740 to €1,500 nationally. In Dublin, average rents are now €2,082. My area of Dún Laoghaire in south Dublin has the highest average rents anywhere in the country at €2,280.

The policy of outsourcing is being discussed in the media today, although I received these answers in July. By the end of this year, housing assistance payments, HAP, the rental accommodation scheme, RAS and leasing arrangements will have cost €1.8 billion. This will go to the private sector. In most cases, it will be to pay for properties that the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, sold, another decision made by that Government. This is, in itself, fairly extraordinary. One target in Rebuilding Ireland that the Minister met when he had responsibility for housing was to get to 80,000 RAS, HAP and leasing properties. To get another bit of information out there, we now have 61,312 HAP tenancies, 17,507 RAS tenancies and 952 leasing arrangements. There are 10,000 to 15,000 more projected for the course of 2022. This far exceeds the amount of local authority housing or public housing that will be built in that period.

As if all of this, landing us with the housing crisis we are now in, were not bad enough, during the same period, including the period the Minister was the Minister with responsibility for housing, the HAP limits in this dysfunctional incredibly expensive system have not increased since 2017 while rents have continued to increase. Given the average rents in some areas of Dublin, including my area, people are, by definition, homeless if they need accommodation and are relying on HAP limits. The maximum HAP even for people who are homeless is €1,950 and the average HAP is €1,300. In the same period since the Minister entered Government in 2011, the income thresholds for eligibility for social housing have not changed. If people are knocked off the housing list, as many are, because they exceed the income threshold they are not entitled to HAP either. This means they are, by definition, homeless. Does the Minister accept this was a disastrous failure? What will the Government do to compensate those who have suffered as a result in terms of delivering them affordable and secure housing?

The Deputy and I have had this debate many times in the House. He is right on one thing. Overly relying on rental supports is not a long- to medium-term solution for the housing challenges we face. Supply is the solution, with more social housing, more affordable housing, more targeted and tailor-made solutions for people who need housing and who want to own and pay for their own homes but need the support of the State to do so, and people who want to be in the rental market and need supports to be there.

The truth is that there has been an over-reliance on HAP in recent years because we simply have not been able to deliver enough new builds at the pace needed. This is a simple and practical problem. We are now committing to spend €4 billion on housing each year but it takes time to build significant numbers of houses. We will provide approximately 10,000 social housing units per year, as well as affordable housing on top of this which, in time, will have a huge impact on responding to housing need.

The Deputy cannot on the one hand say we should not be continuing to spend more and more money on HAP and at the same time make the case for increasing thresholds and increasing the amount of money tenants can get. This is a contradiction. In many ways, HAP is an emergency response for people while the State builds a housing stock that responds to the extraordinary demands we are seeing at present. This is what we will do in the coming years. Next year, in 2022, there will be 11,800 social homes delivered, including 9,000 new social housing builds. This year, in 2021, there will be 12,750 new social homes, including 9,500 new builds, 800 targeted acquisitions and 2,450 homes through leasing programmes.

I can remember clearly when I came into the Department with responsibility for housing. Deputy Kelly was the Minister prior to me. We were faced with trying to reignite a building sector to build huge quantities of housing stock from a completely flat start. I think, and I stand to be corrected, that the year before I became Minister with responsibility for housing, all of the local authorities combined built 75 social houses. Now, that figure is 7,000 or 8,000. This is something that will take time to fix. In the meantime, we need to support people in rental accommodation through HAP and other solutions which are there.

It was not an accident, it was not an emergency, it was a policy. Let us just be honest about it. It was a policy. The reason so few houses were built in the year the Minister referred to was because a policy decision was made in 2011 to discontinue them. Meanwhile, we were selling properties, which we are now renting back at extraordinary cost. The target for HAP, RAS and leasing was not an accident. It was a policy. It is in Rebuilding Ireland. It was the Minister's policy that the amount of HAP, RAS and leasing would be 2.5 times what we were going to deliver in terms of actual local authority housing.

Is it a contradiction to say I want the thresholds raised? No, it is not. I am sorry. The Minister has created the mess but I am afraid the consequence of this mess is that while the Government ramps up, and it has to do so at far greater speed than it has been doing, it cannot have a situation where people who are ten years on the housing list get made homeless because their average income briefly goes over the threshold. Huge numbers of people have lost out. They cannot afford the rents. They are then thrown off the housing list. HAP levels are not enough in the capital and many other areas for people to get properties. They are, by definition, homeless. I am afraid the Minister is going to have to do something about it. This week, I met a family, who are solely dependent on social welfare and who have been in homeless accommodation for three years, who have been taken off the housing list because they exceeded the limits.

The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, is looking at the limits issue. There are areas, particularly in the capital, where rental prices are significantly higher than HAP can support. I recognise this. It is an issue that is being looked at. To correct the record, it was not policy, either for me or my predecessor, to not build large numbers of social housing homes. It was the opposite, in fact. It was about ramping up as quickly as we possibly could and spending billions of euro in taxpayers' money to do so.

That has taken years to deliver and continues to do so. We are now spending €4 billion as opposed to €2 billion. It is important that we do not start rewriting history here in terms of what happened pre-2011 and where this country was and what it could afford to do.

The issues the Deputy raised in respect of thresholds and ceilings have some validity but the truth is that these support programmes for leasing and rental are necessary while we dramatically increase social and affordable housing stock, which we will do in the years ahead.