Ms Valerie O'Sullivan:

The committee can see the specific actions undertaken by Cork city in terms of homelessness. The one to which I will draw members' attention is the new facility at Bishopsgrove, which is the first of its kind in the State . It is an innovative type of homeless accommodation for students who wish to pursue third level accommodation.

Pillar 2 is to accelerate social housing and the key points are listed in our submission. There will be an additional 1,293 social housing units provided up to 2021. They are all in the pipeline. This pertains to new housing stock rather than voids recovery or other housing options.

Pillar 3 is concerned with building more homes. One can see how prices in the purchase and rental sectors have increased since the trough of the recession.

They are listed in the submission I have provided to the committee. We must focus on developing brownfield sites within the city boundary. It is prudent to do so because they are adjacent to or on existing infrastructure or where infrastructure is available. Some new infrastructure, particularly transport, is essential to enable larger brownfield development.

Under the local infrastructure housing activation fund we are focusing on two locations, one of which is land owned by Cork City Council at Old Whitechurch Road, which is capable of providing between 550 and 600 units. There are two sites located on the south docks, which are capable of providing 800 units. It is sensible and prudent to develop in that area. The council is procuring the infrastructure works for our own lands at Old Whitechurch Road and our master plan is nearing completion. We plan for this to be a mixed tenure scheme. Design of infrastructure to facilitate housing development on the two sites in the south docks is also progressing.

Members can see further actions detailed in my written submission. They include the potential for innovative ways of producing additional housing supply at a city council-owned site in the county council's area and which is under consideration in the planning process for 153 units. Our north-west quarter regeneration plan in Knocknaheeny is to undergo a review this year. It has been in place since 2011 and the physical side of it - with 23 units completed, 29 units under construction and 149 starts imminent in the next few months - is progressing very well. We are now looking at the non-physical side of the regeneration such as socio-economic aspects in that area.

Pillar 4 applies to improving in the rental sector. Rather than going into my written submission in detail, it is clear that the city council is engaging with landowners and developers.

Pillar 5 covers utilising existing houses. One of the council's highlights to date in the delivery of housing was around the time when funding became available. Matched by some of our own funds it created a combined fund of more than €8 million combined and we returned 840 social housing units to stock in less than two years.

As for the buy and renew scheme, in terms of acquisitions it has worked well for us in that we bought without having to renew very much. We are now looking at properties that can fall into this category. The city council is partnering with other agencies locally under the repair and lease scheme. There is a target of 26 units for delivery in the current year under this scheme.

Cork City Council is making progress. We in Cork city believe that demand for social housing is capable of being met, especially if resources and progress continue at this pace. Put into context, our social housing demand equates to less than one fifth of the city's population. Some of this demand emanates from outside of Cork city. The development and management of social housing is a very strong feature of the council's track record. Of our total of approximately 57,000 homes within Cork city, almost one third were developed originally by Cork City Council. We have a track record in building, managing and providing social houses.

There are, however, current and future challenges for us. One challenge, which is quite obvious, is the scarcity of development land within the city. This is what prompted our use of the competitive dialogue procedure to unlock sites about which we may not previously have been aware. Another challenge is the growing population as evidenced by the 2016 census. This is driving demand levels beyond normal growth levels. That is a challenge. As we learnt from a recent publication from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, that our population is ageing, we must make sure we are providing the appropriate types of housing in future housing programmes to accommodate this need. There is a tendency towards urbanism and urban living and the demand profile is changing. Consequently, we need to respond. There is a move away from what we may have traditionally provided in Cork city, in respect of social housing in particular but also in private housing. We must build sustainable communities and not just houses, hence the review of our regeneration plan and other measures.

Like other local authorities we are experiencing a severe lack of investment into existing older housing stock. If we do not invest in it then we will pay much more dearly into the future. Local autonomy to make decisions is absolutely essential. There are viability issues that still exist and which are quoted to us regularly by developers. There are also some legacy land debt issues, which remain a challenge for the council.