Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy has strongly defended housing assistance payments (HAP) to private landlords which will amount to more than €300 million this year.

Mr Murphy said the scheme was “a way of meeting a person’s social housing needs but using the private rental sector which some people do prefer”.

He said the vast majority of landlords were “small landlords , sometimes accidental landlords” owning just one or two properties. He said the scheme was not a replacement for house building and said 10,000 new homes would be added to the State’s stock of social housing this year.

Criticism had been levelled by Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin who claimed 78 per cent of the social housing for 2018 would come in some capacity from the private rental sector. The Oireachtas Public Accounts committee also noted that last year €153 million was paid to private landlords under the HAP scheme and that the figure was set to rise to more than €300 million in this year.

Affordable housing

Committee chairman Seán Fleming said over the past decade the Government was shifting from “bricks to benefits” to deal with the lack of affordable housing.

However, speaking as he opened an eight-house extension to a St Vincent de Paul scheme in Malahide, Co Dublin, Mr Murphy said all kinds of housing providers were needed.

“We need to use everyone to face this challenge and to win in terms of fixing the housing crisis that we have today and we can only do that by working together,” he said, noting the work of local authorities, housing bodies and private builders.