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

I am not criticising anybody but we will need more time for the next review. On the Airbnb issue, yesterday there were 1,500 properties available to rent in Dublin on the market and 6,500 properties on the Airbnb website. I know a large number are for short letting but a very large number are for long-term letting. My worry is that if the working group only reports back in the second quarter, we are really only looking at regulations for September, October or November. Is there any way the working group can be brought forward or the gap between the report and regulations could be sped up? It is an urgent issue in terms of supply.

I am sure Ms Mary Hurley is pulling out her hair with regard to the approval process. I will make a comparison. We rushed through very substantial and controversial legislation to fast-track the private sector planning process because of an 84-week delay. The very first Part 8 provisions I voted on at South Dublin County Council in 2013 were for 11 houses and they have still not been built. It is 160 weeks since we voted on that planning permission. I know that is an extreme case but I do not get the sense, whether it is from the Minister or officials, of the same urgency in tackling the considerable delay in the four-stage process as we got we got with the private sector 100-unit plus proposal. I share everybody's frustration. I do not care who is responsible and this is not really about blaming the officials or local authorities. This needs an urgent solution, as waiting 160 weeks for 11 houses is just insane. I am sure Ms Hurley would be the first to say that privately. We need some movement on that.

The Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, confirmed in a reply to a parliamentary question from Deputy Pearse Doherty before Christmas that AIB and Permanent TSB were making available two blocks of properties totalling 1,000 vacant units to the Housing Agency, clearly in response to the agency's €70 million fund. The Minister confirmed that money for 200 of those units has been approved. I have asked the Minister responsible for housing, Deputy Coveney, twice in parliamentary questions why funding has been made available for only 200 and he has evaded the answer twice. If we are looking at rapid build and emptying 700 families from hotels, if there are 1,000 vacant units not on the private market - so they are not competing with first-time buyers - why are we not buying them? Perhaps some are not suitable or they are too expensive. Maybe some are in the wrong place. The committee should get a list or some information on this so we have a clear explanation on the issue.

I would like an update, whether in writing after the meeting or here, on the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, funding for social housing under the plan and the ongoing debacle of the Irish League of Credit Unions. I know it is not primarily stuck in the Department but any information would be useful. On the housing needs assessment, we have had a 30% drop from the figures that local authorities were giving to a number of us through freedom of information requests in May last year to the September deadline. In my local authority there was a 40% drop on the number of people on the list. It cannot be the case that 40% of the 9,000 households under South Dublin County Council had housing needs met between May and September. Some have gone to the housing assistance payment and some have fallen foul of the stricter application of the financial threshold, which was wrongly applied much more strictly this time around. Dublin City Council has given until 31 March for people to contact the council to try to rectify any unfair removal from the list. Is that a Dublin City Council issue or could a note be sent to all local authorities to say they should apply that measure? This has been the single largest drop in the housing list seen in any recent housing needs assessment and I am very worried about it.

I have other questions but I will submit them as parliamentary questions. We need a separate and dedicated meeting on the 29 actions in private rental strategy as we have not had a substantive debate about it. If it gets mushed into the next quarterly review, we will not deal with it. I hope we can facilitate a dedicated discussion on that before the end of February.