Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There was a major change around 2004 in the role of local authorities in the provision of social housing. The movement was away from the councils constructing what we used to call council houses to having money to purchase them on the market. Although it was introduced by a Fianna Fáil Minister, I was one of the strong supporters of the new policy. I agreed with the arguments about social mix and not developing ghettos of local authority houses. By purchasing in private estates, a social mix could be achieved. It worked. However, now there is a housing supply problem and there are not houses available for the purchasing model to succeed.

It is time for the local authorities to get more directly involved again. They have been given several billion euro for social housing for the next five years. While they should have organisational units for the building of houses, much of the construction could take place under the auspices of the voluntary housing agencies, which are still in the construction business and have the capacity to do it.

The other problem is that there seems to be a difficulty in getting clearance from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government through to local authorities for building houses. Somebody told me local authorities have to get over eight jumps before they get full clearance. I do not know whether it is correct. It would be national policy to reduce this. While there must be some authority in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government or a new housing Department, we should remove the unnecessary red tape and allow it to move forward more quickly, given that we are in a crisis. Local authorities have discretion, under their own authority, to have developments up to a value of approximately €3 million. This ceiling should be increased, perhaps up to €5 million. They need greater discretion to act autonomously.

If we are successful at forming a new Government, we will have a large policy section on housing and homelessness. I would not like to close the door on it and pretend that those who will form a Government have a monopoly of knowledge in the area. We will put doors into our new policy to specify that it will take into account the recommendations of the Committee on Housing and Homelessness to allow for easy feedback in so we can adopt new proposals. If I understand new politics, this is how we should work. We should address problems and see if we can come up with solutions with the best thinking available.