Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Is any provision being made for affordable housing? This has been requested by many people. The Minister will be aware of Ó Cualann in Ballymun, which is co-operative housing, and it is working off a site that was fully serviced. As the Minister said in respect of plans to service different sites, money has been set aside for the local authorities. Is there any way to use co-operatives, such as this one, a bit more? They are delivering affordable housing at a price.

I refer to the plan for PPPs. We have five sites or whatever the number is and there is one such site in Finglas. We are running into major problems with this in terms of the communities. I have very serious concerns about the way it is being done in the Finglas area but what has happened is that we have sold people the idea that the social mix was there. That is the message which has been sold by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party and even our party, that is, that there should be social, affordable and private together. With the PPPs, for example, there will be 100% social housing in the Finglas area. If that was delivered in the right way, with all the proper facilities, I would not have a problem with it but, unfortunately, that is not the case. From what I can see, the PPPs are in serious trouble. I know from talking to managers in Dublin City Council that many of them have serious doubts at to whether PPPs can be delivered.

I am unclear what provision has the Department made for this year. Most of them will be delivered down the road but is any provision being made? I note that in an increase of €38 million, a provision of €98 million went into homeless services. Does the Minister envisage that rising further or does he see it levelling out? The indicators at the moment show that homelessness is still rising, which indicates something is going wrong somewhere in what is being delivered. We have the rapid builds coming on stream across a number of areas, including 40 units in my own area. Does the Minister envisage the policy changing? Are these to be directly solely to homeless people or will there be a combination or people who are on the housing list, homeless people and so on? Does the Minister see that the rapid build housing will be used more in that way?