Dublin City Council (DCC) has warned that it is unlikely that the tenant-in-situ process can be sped-up significantly.

The assistant chief executive of DCC told the Oireachtas Housing Committee that it generally takes three to fourth months for a house to be acquired through the tenant-in-situ scheme.

Cóilín O'Reilly said that while there may be potential to speed up this process by a small degree, "we're not going to take months off" the process.

He explained that acquiring a property through this process, like any house sale, can take a number of months.

Mr O'Reilly was responding to Sinn Féin's housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin.

Allocation breakdowns

The Committee received a breakdown of the tenant-in-situ scheme allocations for each local authority.

Dublin City Council has been allocated enough funding to acquire 400 properties, which politicians heard is broadly in line with what the council was already seeking to achieve.

Aine Stapleton, Assistant Secretary in the Social Housing Division of DCC, told members that the tenant-in-situ allocations for each local authority will be kept under review.

Local Authorities have been asked to refer back to the Department of Housing by the end of March with an initial assessment of how the scheme is working for them.

Ms Stapleton said that the department is open to amending the distribution for each local authority if required.

Dublin City Council has the highest allocation for the tenant-in-situ scheme, with 400 set to be acquired in 2023.

This compares to Fingal County Council's allocation for 125 homes, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown for 50 and South Dublin County Council for 150 homes.

Counties Carlow, Cavan, Laois, Leitrim, Longford, Monaghan, Offaly and Roscommon are all set to acquire 10 properties through the scheme.

Separately, Mary Hayes, Director of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE), told Fianna Fáil Senator Mary Fitzpatrick that the DRHE has not referred a family at risk of homelessness to a garda Station.

She said the last time she heard of this happening was in 2018 when an NGO referred a family to a station.