Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegation and thank them for coming in. Mr. Cummins says social and private housing clients are competing for the same limited supply.

Does he agree that this is directly linked to the fact that we have been using private housing to satisfy the demand for social housing through the rent supplement scheme?

Mr. Cummins said we need to make every aspect of housing provision more affordable, and referred immediately to the cost of land. Does the local authority have powers to engage in compulsory purchase? He might fill us in on that. He also said that the financial services market has an obligation to be part of the solution and make credit available. I do not think the State is very good at telling the private banks what to do and it is probably not going to start now. Does Mr. Cummins not think that the State should be borrowing money itself, in order to find the money to do this?

Mr. Cummins said that we need to create an environment in which quality developers and builders have the opportunity to share their experience and skills in building sustainable and quality homes for our citizens. I am wondering how we can assess what a quality builder is. I wonder as well if Mr. Cummins is actually over-concentrated on the big developer and on going for the big bang effect. There are an awful lot of small city and country sites and I cannot help feeling that they are not being targeted nearly as much. There are plenty of very small builders in the country who are well able to build.

Mr. Cummins talked about the new tenant purchase scheme as if it were something very positive. There was some recent research in Britain which showed that over the last 30 years the scheme has not really worked at all. Firstly, 40% of the units sold through the scheme were not replaced, so stock was reduced, and secondly 40% of them ended up in the hands of landlords who were renting them back to tenants again. The State was actually supplementing the rent, so they were back to stage one.

Mr. Cummins has argued that unless the private sector returns to building properties immediately the problem, including homelessness, is going to get worse. Of course it would help things if they returned to the market, but does Mr. Cummins not agree that the State sector has actually been waiting for the last six or seven years, or more, for the private sector to get involved? The philosophy seems to have been that the markets will sort it out. Sadly the markets have not sorted it out and we need the State to get back in to building and providing houses.

The witnesses might be able to tell me how much social housing has been delivered in the Docklands area since 2008. There is a lot of high-end commercial property being built down there. Does the local authority have the wherewithal to insist on residential rather than commercial development in order to help alleviate our housing crisis in areas like this?

Could Mr. Cummins fill me in on why the regeneration of O'Devaney Gardens has not progressed? What is the plan and what do the witnesses expect to happen in the near future? It was mentioned that they feel local authorities should not be building 100% social housing on any site. I agree completely because it creates ghettoisation and the social problems that go with that. Are there any plans to put 100% social housing on any site in Dublin city in the near future?

We were talking earlier about procurement challenges. I am fairly well aware of how long it takes to make all this happen. I did a bit of building in my time and I know plenty of the challenges involved. Do the witnesses think the local authorities are understaffed?