Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Part of the problem has been a lack of a local authority building programme, possibly over a nine or ten-year period when housing ceased to be built. I live in Drogheda and was a member of Drogheda Borough Council for more years than I care to remember. We were always building houses and then we moved away from Department-sanctioned funding by the local authority to housing associations. I suppose the advantage from a local authority perspective was narrow in that it did not have to be responsible for maintenance. In many cases, the local authority did not even have to select the tenants once they came off the housing list in whatever order the housing association wished to take them. That is when we lost the capacity to deal properly with the problem because the local authority no longer had the skills and was now longer involved.

In respect of the social housing plan and the different percentages in some counties whereby some will build 50% of their need while others will build 25%, there is no equity within that plan based on the applicants per local authority area. In other words, if one can build 50% of the need in Longford, one might only have to build 100 houses whereas in Dublin, the number will be in the thousands. Is there a need to look again at that programme to ensure that, say, 50% of all houses needed will be built in a certain timeframe and drill down from that because I believe we will have huge areas that will probably not be built on because local authorities will not have the capacity to deliver?

My second question goes back to affordable housing and the mix. I respect what Mr. Cummins said and I am not splitting hairs or taking personal issue with him. He said that given all the land in local authority or State ownership, he could see local authorities building on only a small portion of the land. I think those were the words he used. That would concern me greatly because who builds on the rest of the land? I appreciate that Mr. Cummins said that we would have integrated housing that would not be just social housing but I think we need to move away from that and build proper social and affordable housing together that people can afford to buy or live in.

I do not have a rule book in my hand regarding standards but a significant portion of State land must be built on because it is much cheaper for the State to use its own land than to go to the private sector.

Why did the four Dublin local authorities refuse all the houses offered to them by NAMA? There were 6,000 houses in the State and I can give Mr. Cummins the figures for Dublin because he may not necessarily have them. The number of houses that were offered equalled the number of people who were homeless in the city and, therefore, in theory, they ought to have been housed. The houses that the councils refused to accept were returned to the hands of private landlords and, as Deputy Butler said, the people living in them are local authority housing applicants on HAP and rent allowance. That does not make sense. The local authorities erred significantly in refusing those houses and I would like to know why they did not accept them.