Minister for Enterprise Simon Coveney has defended Ryanair’s decision to buy 25 newly-built homes in north Dublin.

The airline intends to rent out the houses in Swords to cabin crew at Dublin Airport, but has faced criticism locally from would-be homeowners and politicians.

Ryanair said the decision to purchase homes in Fosterstown was due to the ongoing issue of affordability impacting on recruitment of staff.

“In recent years the absence of affordable rental accommodation has been a major impediment to recruiting and training new Irish and European cabin crew members to Ryanair’s in-flight team,” the airline said.

“This accommodation, which is located one bus stop from Dublin Airport, will be rented at affordable rates to Ryanair cabin crew during their first year of employment.”

Mr Coveney said the practice of buying homes for workers “isn’t unusual” among large businesses.

“I was in Paris in the last number of weeks looking at the largest start-up hub in Europe, and they’ve also invested in housing to support people to work there,” he told Newstalk radio on Sunday.

“If you go across to the west coast in the US, large multinationals also invest in housing.

“What Ryanair has done here is ensure the housing pressure their staff are feeling that they are directly impacting that in a positive way and have people living close to the airport.”

Mr Coveney said an addition to the housing market through multinational companies “isn’t necessarily a bad thing”.

“We need to make sure large multinationals aren’t effectively competing with first-time buyers for housing,” he said.

“We are spending millions of euros to ensure housing supply increases and first-time buyers are prioritised.”

Figures released on Thursday confirmed 32,695 new homes were built in 2023, the largest number in 15 years.

It means the Government has exceeded the 29,000 target it set itself under the Housing for All programme.