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

What Deputy Cowen said about the need for a new approach is spot on. That is why we need a new action plan. I am not sure whether we should set up a national authority for housing. We could spend a lot of time trying to construct a new governance model or we could focus instead on taking a project-management approach within the Department and driving a results-based approach with local authorities of setting targets and meeting them. I will examine what Deputy Cowen proposed but at the moment our approach is very much trying to use the existing infrastructure in local authorities in order to empower both councils and chief executives to demand of them what they need to get results and then to try to help them to deliver. Perhaps we could add to that by creating a new housing authority but there is a possibility that it would distract. I am not sure but I am happy to explore the concept. Deputy Cowen should not forget that we have a Housing Agency and a Housing Finance Agency and lots of local authorities, which in the past had the capacity to manage housing stock and build out new housing stock reasonably well, although in many cases some of that skill set has been lost, but we are gearing up local authorities to be able to do that more effectively again. We have approved an increase in staffing appointments to local authorities to ensure they are able to respond. We have been doing the same within the Department. A total of 420 extra people have been sanctioned for appointment to local authorities, in particular in this area, and there may well be more.

We are going to be more demanding of An Bord Pleanála, but to be fair, in order for it to deliver, we must give it resources to help it respond. If we are going to be demanding An Bord Pleanála must have the capacity to turn around decisions faster and it will need more people and resources to do that. If that is necessary I suspect we will do it. I have already had an initial conversation with the chair of An Bord Pleanála in that regard.

I have spoken to some committee members about my thinking on Part VIII. We want to keep councillors involved in the decision-making process but we also want to try to get decisions made quicker, in particular on social housing projects. We cannot have a situation whereby we have communities deciding they will block social housing projects in their areas because they do not want them for whatever reason. If we are serious about integrating communities, whereby one has social housing mixed with private housing in a way that is appropriate and creates diverse, vibrant communities then we must find a way of making it happen. Sometimes that is not popular in some areas and, again, we must find a system that can make it happen. I would not like to over-exaggerate the role of Part VIII in terms of preventing things from happening.