Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. As a brief reply to Deputy Ó Broin, we can absolutely learn lessons from other countries. That is why I think international comparisons are important. Let us leave that part of the debate there.

In response to Deputy Cowen, the local infrastructure housing activiation fund, LIHAF, is an excellent initiative whereby we can use a relatively small amount of taxpayers' money to unlock very big housing sites, from which we will derive a Part 5 commitment from a developer and a cost reduction per-unit or its own little affordability scheme.

However, some of the sites have a number of different owners. They might be part locally-owned. There might be different requirements in the local area. Actually putting together contracts with the private side and with the local authority is not necessarily straightforward, but a huge amount of work has been done. While money has not been drawn down yet, we are at design stage for many of these projects. They know exactly what they are going to do. Some money has been drawn down, albeit a small amount, and LIHAF is going to deliver thousands of new homes. I have a detailed table of exactly what has been signed off and at what amounts, and if the Deputy wants to examine a couple of sites we can do that. I can discuss how the money is being leveraged and what it might return.

We have spoken about the repair and leasing scheme before in regard to its effectiveness to date. The scheme has received a total of 705 applications as of 9 November. That is an increase of 32% on on the figure for the second quarter of this year. Some 18 agreements to lease have been signed. That is obviously a much smaller number than what we had hoped to achieve with the repair and leasing scheme this year. As we have already spoken about, we recognised midway through the year that there were problems with the scheme that were making it unattractive for people to access, such as the length of time for which the lease agreement would have to be entered into. We are finalising a new version of the repair and lease scheme which will be notified to all local authorities very shortly. It will address those issues of concern that have made the scheme less attractive than it might have been. The Department manages its budget in the total envelope. As such, money that was not utilised under the repair and lease scheme was moved to other areas, such as homelessness services, where there were additional demands, for more hubs for example. That is where the funding has gone. However, where private vacancies are concerned, the repair and lease scheme will be an important tool to get more vacant homes back onto the market and in use for social housing.

In regard to other services, a sum of €90 million includes €70 million for some of the Housing Agency's acquisitions and €20 million for the pyrite remediation scheme. It funds some areas of housing research and also contributes to the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB. In regard to the 5,050 units to be delivered this year I would like to comment on the Ó Cualann model. It is a fantastic model, which is why I have met with them in my Department and we are trying to do something at a greater scale. That is what I hope the €25 milllion will go towards, a model whereby the local authority can use local authority land sold at €1000 or €2000 euro per house, build a home and sell it via mortgage to a tenant much more cheaply than what might have been available. For example, when I visited the Ó Cualann scheme, I met a woman who had been paying something like €1500 in rent and was now paying a mortgage of €700. That made an incredible difference to her life and her family life. That is what we want to do and what we want to achieve with our affordability schemes.

Over 1,000 local authority and housing body builds are complete at present, according to Q3 data, which will be released in the coming weeks. There are more coming, obviously, because of the target numbers of direct builds, which we will hit before the end of the year. For acquisitions, the target of 12,50 has been met; for leasing the target was 600, which has been met. In regard to the Rental Accomodation Scheme, RAS, half the targets on Housing Assistance Payment, HAP, have been exceeded, and the RAS target is on track.