Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To be honest, and this may be unusual for a Fine Gael Minister to say in response to a Sinn Féin Deputy, but I do not disagree with a lot of what Deputy Ó Broin has said. We do need to significantly increase the provision of social housing. That has started and is happening now. Approximately 5,000 vacant social housing units were brought back into use in the past two years. Last year alone, approximately 2,700 voids were brought back into use. The percentage of social housing voids in Dublin is now down to 1%. A big effort has been made in that area and there have also been significant improvements in Cork and Galway in that regard. This year we are expecting to return another 1,500 units to use.

Undoubtedly, the reliance on the private sector alone to meet a social housing need through supported rent schemes and other supports has resulted in core social housing stock numbers falling. That is a problem and one which we want to address. The core numbers of social housing available to local authorities and approved housing bodies must be increased and we want to work with them to do that. That said, the private sector has an important role to play in making that happen because what we do not want to do is embark on a massive social housing build programme that is not providing accommodation for integrated communities. The kind of social housing provision that I would like to see us deliver would be integrated within private and affordable developments so that we will have integrated, mixed communities as opposed to having social housing in one location and solely private housing in other locations in towns and cities. There needs to be a significant increase in the number of publicly-owned, appropriately managed social housing units and that is starting to happen but I want to see those units integrated within private sector developments. We are starting to see very proactive planning with that in mind. Obviously, there will be some direct-build social housing estates and some approved housing bodies will purchase turnkey solutions of 30 to 50 units that can be put to very good use. However, we must make sure we do not repeat the mistakes that were made decades ago where we had huge swathes of urban centres that were solely social housing. That would be a big mistake but, to be fair, nobody is asking for that.

In terms of delays around procurement and approvals, my Department has worked hard to try to shorten the length of time it takes to get approval. A year ago there was a nine-stage approval process but now we have a four-stage process. One of the things we will be working on with the local authorities is shortening the timeframe from when a project is being mooted and designed to when it gets approved. That will mean the Department sending delivery teams - comprising architects, quantity surveyors, engineers, designers and so forth - to local authorities so that we can sign off on designs earlier rather than having back-and-forth e-mail contact around agreeing costings, designs, density and all of the other aspects relating to social housing projects.

There are 3,500 social houses at stage 1 approval at present.

We need to get all of those projects through stage 4 as quickly as possible so that we can build them. The Department officials and County and City Management Association, CCMA, will appear before the committee this afternoon to provide more detail on how those processes will work. Essentially, the way I view it is that we should take a project management approach towards these individual projects with local authorities. We will send out teams of people so that during a two or three day period they can iron out many of the problems that may have taken months in the past in terms of a back and forth communication trying to sign-off or agreement on design or costings or whatever. In regard to the point raised by the Deputy, just because I have not mentioned it in my initial statements is not to suggest we are not focusing on it.

On the procurement side, one thing we could do more of is to have central agreed and approved lists of contractors which local authorities can use. For example, on the rapid build projects, by mid-summer the office of Government procurement will have an approved list of contractors that local authorities can access and from which they can take a contractor rather than having to go through a three or four month procurement process within their local authority. I understand that some of the larger local authorities already have approved lists in place. For example, Cork County Council and some of the Dublin councils already have approved lists that allow them make decisions more quickly in terms of procurement. We want to see them using those lists to ensure there are not unnecessary delays around the procurement process.

On the issue of vacant housing, I have met the Housing Agency. It is strong on the potential of the opportunity for the State to acquire large numbers of unoccupied vacant houses. I have asked it to do a detailed piece of work on their location, who owns them, how they can be accessed, under what process they could be financed and if it can be done off-balance sheet. We are looking at the potential there. The figure of 230,000 vacant properties which is the 2011 figure is high. I believe we will have a more accurate figure from the CSO census towards the end of June. Even if the number is half that figure, it is still more than 100,000 vacant properties. A decent proportion of those have to be in areas that could be used for potential social housing. Obviously, if we can buy property through acquisition that is not being used it is a much quicker process than building and we should use that opportunity. However, we have to look at the cost and how we might be able to finance it in the context of what is possible at budget time in terms of the famous fiscal space.

To give the committee a sense of the opportunity, there is enough planning permission in Dublin for 27,000 houses today and enough zoned land around Dublin for 88,000 houses today. About half require some intervention in terms of infrastructure but most of it is localised and not very high cost infrastructure. There are 4,400 housing units under construction on building sites in Dublin - that is, 4,400 of the 27,000 with full planning permission out of the 88,000 in terms of zoned land. Clearly, there is significant potential to dramatically ramp-up housing provision in and around Dublin with the right interventions around planning, infrastructure and creating viability in terms of developers to make things happen. That is what we are focusing on. I could provide the figures for other cities but Dublin is where the big numbers are. Clearly, there is a need to release the zoned land and the planning permissions that are currently in place, whether it is through NAMA or private developments, social housing or local authorities - or in reality a combination of all of them.

In regard to domestic violence and homelessness, there are a number of issues which go beyond my Department's direct remit but in respect of which we have a responsibility to co-ordinate. For example, I am somewhat alarmed at the number of children or adolescents who may have been in State care and who find themselves homeless after they leave it. The number of people who are sleeping rough in Dublin and who have serious mental health and addiction problems is not a surprise or news to me or anyone else who talks to those who are homeless or who understand homelessness. However, for the State to respond in a co-ordinated fashion - to get a more effective and targeted outcome for the needs of people, some of whom have real needs that are unmet at present - requires serious consideration in how we help the voluntary and charity sectors and how we provide supports through the HSE and other State-owned agencies and bodies. I assure the Deputy that I have spoken to quite a number of people who are homeless and to many of the organisations that are trying to provide supports for them. We have a pretty good overview, although one can always learn more about the complexities of people's lives and how they find themselves in extraordinarily difficult situations. Our job is to try to put a more co-ordinated response in place in order to achieve better outcomes for people. There will be some who will say that if one were to look at the percentage of people per head of population who are sleeping rough in Dublin versus other European capitals, then one would realise that Dublin is doing very well. That is the kind of commentary we reject out of hand because it is totally unhelpful in the context of the contribution that is required to deal with rough sleeping and homelessness in Dublin. I look forward to the committee's recommendations on how we might improve the situation.