Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In fairness, the local authorities did not build the houses themselves; they got contractors in to build them. However, the whole process of getting local authorities to get work done is just a minefield. I will give the committee an example. In my constituency there was a private housing estate finished and ready to occupy recently, and it took eight weeks to get a county council engineer to sign off on a road opening licence in order that a water connection could be made. With all due respect to everyone, to take eight weeks to sign off on a simple piece of paper about a road opening licence does not make sense to me.

As a result, there was a delay of two months in delivering those houses. AHBs are able to get in and get the job done because there is a team specifically focused on a project to get it done. Local authorities do not seem to have that mechanism. Everyone is doing a bit of everything but no one is in charge of any particular project. If a local authority does ten housing projects, there is no one person in charge of them and it appears to go from department to department and takes forever to get a decision. The structure of local authorities and decision-making is a problem.