Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the presentation. Many of us who are former councillors share the frustration outlined in the presentation, as well as the councillors' belief that local authorities are best placed to deliver the increase in social housing that is required.

I have a number of questions. Some of them do not necessarily reflect my view but the views of other people with whom I disagree, and I am anxious to have the witnesses' response to them put on the record for the work of the committee. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, is talking about reducing the Part 8 period from eight to four weeks; it is one of the ideas he is actively considering. Some local authorities get through their Part 8 processes within about eight weeks, some take 17 weeks and in one local authority it takes nine months. What are the witnesses' views on the Minister's proposal? Where local authorities are taking excessively long periods to get through Part 8 processes, do the witnesses have counter proposals to that of the Minister in order to ensure that the Part 8 process does not become part of the additional delay? If there is more money for social housing, how do we ensure that councils will get through their part of the procedure as well?

On voids, like Deputy Brophy I live in the South Dublin County Council area. The choice-based letting system has helped that county council to reduce the number of voids, just in terms of the turn around. Has the association considered advocating that it be rolled out across all local authorities? Our experience is that it helps enormously.

The Minister is talking about doubling the number of rapid builds and using the same emergency powers. Does the association have a view on that and, if so, could it share it with the committee?

If there is a significant increase in the capital available to local authorities to provide units - many members of the committee strongly believe that should be the case - we will encounter a problem with Government policy on sustainable communities, which a number of the witnesses mentioned. It will require us to start building on a scale beyond the small infill schemes that many local authorities have been carrying out up to now. I have my own ideas about how to deal with that, which I will discuss with the committee when we deal with this at a later stage, but I am interested in the association's view. When the local authorities get substantially more money, how will they deliver those units beyond the 10% under Part V or small infill schemes of ten, 15 or 20 units?

How do the witnesses think we can meet the requirement for sustainable communities in the context of large-scale local authority build-and-buy, which has not happened since those sustainable community policies were introduced?