John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Minister on the importance of the fresh start principle. I sent him a copy of an email, having blocked out the names, received by my office about a month and a half ago from a lady who is separated and divorced and who, because of the change in rules from 20% to 10% and the changes to implement fresh start via the shared equity scheme, is now going to be moving into a property in June. This will get her out of the rental sector and into a secure property with her two children, one of whom has a disability. That is evidence the schemes we have implemented here are having a positive impact on the ground and anyone who says otherwise is the one who is deluded.

The cost-rental threshold has been mentioned. We had a €5,000 increase in the social housing threshold in January, but that 5,000 was not then reflected on the ceiling for the cost rental to allow it go up by a corresponding amount. That should happen without delay. On the changes we are going to implement with the CREL, I am worried there is a bit of a stagnation effect at the moment with the AHBs. They are waiting for changes to be made in that space. There is a scheme of 96 units the developer is ready to go on and I am worried there are delays because changes are anticipated. I ask the Minister to take that away.

We have introduced a targeted leasing scheme of an additional 1,000 units over 2023 and 2024 to target one-bedroom and two-bedroom properties in city centre locations to try to prevent people from going into homelessness. It is a really positive measure. All the local authority CEOs and directors of service who were before us were, to a person, in favour of the leasing that was there because it was having a positive impact on the delivery of social homes. I have said countless times nobody can say it is not better to have a family in a long-term lease property of 25 years than to have them in a hotel room tonight. Nobody can justify the converse. I therefore ask that the 1,000 unit targeted leasing scheme be looked at with a view to increasing it. It could be 1,000 additional units delivered and 1,000 units in 2024, because they are the types of units that are readily available in urban locations that are preventing people going into homelessness. I ask the Minister to consider that.

I asked the local authorities why they are not using the single-stage approval process versus the four-stage one. The answer was simple, namely the financial risk there. If a CEO or financial officer in a local authority goes through the four-stage approval process and on to tender at the end of that, the Department will underwrite all the costs of that development. However, if an authority goes through the single-stage approval process, submits an estimate of costs for the development, goes out to tender and has the costs end up higher than that, then it is on the hook for that. Nobody can say that if a local authority goes through the design process and out to the market in a transparent and open tendering process, that should not be just accepted by the Department. Last week, Ms Stapleton committed to issuing a circular to the local authorities in that space to say if the authority carried out an open process and followed the design manual the Department would underwrite those costs. I suggest to the Minister that would be a really important thing to have happen without delay. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, heard the director of services down in Waterford two weeks ago replying a simple "Yes" when asked whether he would use the single-stage approval process if there was no financial risk.