Mr. John McCarthy:

I thank the Chair and the committee for this welcome opportunity to come here today to discuss the first quarterly report under Rebuilding Ireland. At the outset, as it is our first engagement in 2017, I join the Chair in her new year's wishes to everybody on the committee from myself and the team.

I might start by introducing the team here with me today. I am accompanied by Mr. David Walsh, who is the assistant secretary in charge of planning housing market policy and land management, along with his colleague, Mr. Barry Quinlan, who co-ordinates our overall implementation of Rebuilding Ireland.

Mary Hurley is the assistant secretary who leads on the Department's housing programme delivery division and Bairbre Nic Aongusa is the assistant secretary who leads on our social housing policy, including homelessness and rental policy, division.

I think it is welcome that progress under Rebuilding Ireland is being discussed here at this committee. The session today is one in a series of interactions between the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Coveney, the Department and the committee. These meetings provide an important opportunity to update and inform the committee of key developments and progress and for us in the Department to receive feedback from committee members.

The focus of today's meeting is the first quarterly progress report under Rebuilding Ireland, published on 1 November 2016. That report charted the progress made on relevant actions since the Rebuilding Ireland plan was published on 19 July. It is the first in what will be a series of reports that will be published on a quarterly basis and we are currently working on the second quarterly report covering the fourth quarter of 2016. The intention is to finalise and present the fourth quarter progress report to the Cabinet committee on housing at the end of this month with a view to publication thereafter.

Initially, as members are aware, Rebuilding Ireland contained 84 actions across five key pillars of activity for implementation not just by our Department but also by a range of other Departments and agencies, and of course local authorities. One key action for delivery in quarter four last year was the publication of a new strategy for the rental sector and that was indeed finalised and published last month. As members will be aware, the necessary associated legislation was considered by the Oireachtas before the Christmas recess. Progress on implementing the 29 actions contained in the rental strategy in future will be incorporated into the quarterly reporting under Rebuilding Ireland generally and all the progress reports and up-to-date information will continue to be made available on the dedicated Rebuilding Ireland website.

Since the publication of Rebuilding Ireland, our attention has been firmly focused on delivery. Implementation of Rebuilding Ireland is being advanced across a number of Departments, as I have said, and is being taken forward under the oversight of the Cabinet committee on housing, chaired by An Taoiseach. Within our own Department, an implementation board of senior officials, chaired by myself and including my colleagues here today and other key senior officials, monitors progress on a fortnightly basis. In addition, an oversight group and a project board with a broader representation of delivery agents and stakeholders have been established. Working group structures under each of the action plan's five pillars have also been put in place. It is also planned to continue to hold regular, broadly based stakeholder forums on housing and homelessness, such as those events that were arranged to date in devising Rebuilding Ireland, and the strategy for the rental sector. These will provide a valuable means of feedback on the practical experience of implementation and will help to inform future policy formulation.

Subject to the agreement of the committee, I now plan to briefly cover the key issues and progress made under each pillar. Generally I will cover the progress reported in the quarter three report, and where possible I will update the committee on progress made since then. I will address the strategy for the rental sector under pillar 4.

Pillar one addresses homelessness. It is the top priority under Rebuilding Ireland, to be achieved through the delivery of the 21 cross-cutting actions outlined in pillar 1, and the priority associated with this is demonstrated by the extent to which the actions are front-loaded. Homelessness, as we all know, is a complex area of social policy that requires close co-operation across a number of Departments and agencies and this is reflected in the pillar one actions. While the key objective of pillar 1 is to move individuals and families out of emergency temporary accommodation, there are also important actions to keep people in their homes. While all efforts are being made to address homelessness, we must recognise the reality of the situation as outlined in the monthly statistics, which have shown increases since June in overall terms. Based on details collected from housing authorities in November 2016, a total of 4,436 adults used State-funded emergency accommodation nationally during the survey week. However, while there have been recent increases in homeless presentations, it is important to note that much is being done to address homelessness and to secure sustainable tenancies for homeless households. For example, during the first nine months of 2016, housing authorities assisted over 2,000 sustainable exits from homelessness, that is, into independent social housing or supported private rented tenancies. It is expected that a total of 2,700 sustainable exits will have been achieved during 2016 as a whole. This is a record level of exits from homelessness in this timeframe and it demonstrates the significant efforts of local authorities to help find more sustainable accommodation solutions.

Despite this record level of activity, the fact that there has continued to be a net increase in homelessness highlights the imperative of achieving timely and full implementation of the range of actions provided for across the pillars of Rebuilding Ireland in order to achieve the necessary increase in supply of housing in general and social housing in particular.

The following key achievements will have a significant impact. Strong progress has been made on the housing assistance payment, HAP, homeless pilot in Dublin. The final figure for 2016 will be published in the quarter four report. However, it is clear at this stage that the target to provide 550 stable and supported housing tenancies for long-term homeless households was significantly exceeded. The HAP scheme for homeless households represents an important new tool to assist in breaking the cycle of homelessness for individuals and families, reducing long-term reliance on emergency accommodation.

Abhaile, the new national mortgage arrears resolution service, and the associated scheme of aid and advice for borrowers in mortgage arrears, was launched by the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality and the Minister for Social Protection. There also has been a focus on the provision of further family and child welfare supports for homeless families such as home-school community liaison services, through education welfare officers and Tusla's work on school completion programmes and so on. The Housing Agency's €70 million rolling fund to purchase vacant properties from banks and investment companies has been established with a target of 1,600 units to be acquired. One of the key targets under pillar one is to end the use of commercial hotels as emergency accommodation for homeless families by the middle of 2017 except in limited exceptional circumstances. In addition to the homeless HAP scheme, which I mentioned earlier, the key element of achieving this target will be the provision of 1,500 rapid delivery homes by the end of 2018. The Office of Government Procurement's rapid delivery framework is now in place and this will be an important tool that will allow local authorities to accelerate delivery in the months ahead.

Under pillar 2, the target is clear, involving the delivery of an additional 47,000 social housing homes over the period to 2021. An overall budget of €5.35 billion has been earmarked for this purpose. These homes are being delivered by local authorities and approved housing bodies through a number of different mechanisms including construction, repair and renewal of existing housing, both public and private, regeneration of certain areas and acquisitions, as well as various leasing arrangements. While the final detailed figures for social housing output will be collated and published over the coming weeks, provisional figures for 2016 indicate that in excess of 18,300 households have had their social housing needs met under the range of social housing schemes, ahead of the target of just over 17,000 that had been set for the year. In terms of social housing construction, the pipeline is very positive. From a situation of very limited new social housing units constructed in 2015, where the reliance was primarily in acquisitions and other delivery mechanisms, it is expected that the projects involving some 2,800 social housing units will commence on site under the main local authority and approved housing body construction programmes this year.

Pillar three is focused on securing significant increases in the delivery of housing in the wider housing market. We are currently finalising the housing output figures for 2016, for publication with the next quarterly progress report, but it is clear from the data to the end of November that they will show an increase on the 12,666 units produced in 2015. While the 2016 increase is very welcome, it is of course just a step along the pathway to increasing housing output to approximately 25,000 units per annum over the course of the Rebuilding Ireland plan. There are 12 actions under pillar three, dealing with funding and financing of infrastructure provision, active land management, planning reforms, construction design innovation and the construction sector's skills and capacity to deliver. The skills issue in particular is a very important area, given the estimated requirements for additional skilled construction workers, and our colleagues in the Department of Education and Skills and SOLAS are working to ramp up the delivery of skills training across a range of key areas. On the infrastructure front, 21 local authorities have applied for funding under the €200 million local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, seeking to open up more of the approximately 17,500 ha of land for development that the planning process has identified nationally for housing, 2,654 ha of which are in Dublin. There will be a further update on the assessment of these applications in the context of the quarter four quarterly progress report.

On the land supply side, relevant Departments, State bodies and local authorities have been contacted regarding lands in their ownership or control or both that may be suitable and available for housing development in connection with the development of a national web-based database of State lands. To make progress quickly, the survey of State development lands is focusing on Dublin and the main cities and urban areas with a view to having the details mapped later in this quarter, after which the approach will be extended to other regions.

Some 23 major urban development sites with the capacity to deliver 30,000 new homes in the medium term in the greater Dublin area, Cork, Limerick and Galway have been identified. Progress on these sites is being proactively monitored by the Department's housing delivery office, with a view to ensuring that the sites become exemplars for the co-ordination and delivery of plan-led housing development and active land management.

The Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Act 2016, which was enacted on 23 December last, enables large-scale housing development proposals to be submitted directly to An Bord Pleanála, while also enabling other important streamlining of planning processes and new tenant protection measures.

Finally under this pillar, a help to buy scheme was introduced by the Minister for Finance as part of the budget for 2017. Under the scheme, first-time buyers who purchase or self-build their own homes can avail of a refund of income tax and DIRT paid in the previous four years up to a maximum amount of €20,000. This refund can be used to satisfy mortgage deposit requirements, making home purchase more achievable for an increasing number of prospective home owners and, in turn, providing confidence to home builders to supply more homes.

Under pillar 4, the key action was the publication of a rental strategy. The strategy for the rental sector was published on 13 December 2016. Importantly, the strategy introduced the concept of rent pressure zones, RPZs, to provide rent predictability in areas of unsustainable rental inflation. RPZs have now been given a statutory basis via the Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Act 2016. In these zones, rent increases will be capped at 4% per annum. The measure was introduced with immediate effect in the four Dublin local authority areas and Cork city. The Residential Tenancies Board has been asked to accelerate the work to develop more detailed area-based rental data in the Dublin and Cork commuter counties and in the other main cities so that additional areas can be designated where the criteria are met. RPZs will be designated for a maximum of three years, by which time it is anticipated that new supply will have come on stream and eased the pressures on the rental market in the most pressured areas.

The Planning and Development (Housing) Residential Tenancies Act 2016 gives effect to other actions in the rental strategy relating to security. It prevents the termination of ten or more tenancies at the same time in a single development in order to facilitate vacant possession sale of the property. Sales in such cases will be conditional on the existing tenants remaining in situ. In addition, the landlord's right during the first six months of a further Part 4 tenancy to end that tenancy has been abolished and the duration of tenancies has been extended from four to six years.

The strategy also puts forward a number of measures that will broaden and strengthen the role and powers of the Residential Tenancies Board to more effectively provide key services to tenants and landlords. In addition, the working group on taxation of rental providers for which provision was made in the strategy has already been established by the Department of Finance.

Under pillar 5, while Rebuilding Ireland places a strong emphasis on the provision of increased new housing supply in respect of both private and social housing to meet demand, a further key objective of the action plan is to ensure that the existing housing stock is used to the maximum degree.

A particular focus in this regard is to bring vacant residential units back into productive use for social and private housing purposes. Through a range of initiatives and targeted policy reforms, harnessing the potential of these houses can contribute to the overall objective of increasing housing supply quickly to meet demand while simultaneously helping to breathe new life and vitality into the streets, estates and rural areas in which they are located. New initiatives, such as the repair and leasing scheme, are designed to realise this potential.

The Central Statistics Office has indicated that more detailed information and categorisation of vacant properties will be available in the housing specific report from Census 2016, which is being prioritised for finalisation by April 2017. This will be a critically important input into the new vacant housing reuse strategy which is to be developed under pillar 5.

In terms of use of social housing stock, choice-based letting, CBL, can play an important part in the more efficient allocation of social housing by local authorities, helping to minimise delays that can arise through offers of accommodation being refused. By using CBL, South Dublin County Council had the lowest reported refusal rate for social housing, at 5%, while in some local authority areas refusals were running at significantly higher levels. To ensure the further roll-out of CBL nationally, new regulations were made on 30 September 2016, requiring every housing authority to provide for a choice-based letting procedure in their housing allocation schemes by the end of the year at the latest.

I have provided a summary of the progress made in implementing Rebuilding Ireland in the months immediately following its publication. While I have concentrated on the quarter 3 progress report, where possible I have provided the committee with more recent updates on significant actions. A further and more comprehensive update will be available in the next progress report, which will be finalised and published in the coming weeks.

As the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Coveney, has indicated, Rebuilding Ireland is a top priority for the Government and the Department is fully committed to its effective delivery. I and my colleagues will be happy to respond to any issues or queries that members may wish to raise.