Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and I shall try to be as brief as I can with just five minutes.

Since last we met, Minister, the biggest controversy about the Rebuilding Ireland plan is not the delivery of the houses but the manner in which the statistics have been validated and verified. The Minister, members of this committee and policymakers need to have confidence in the statistics in order to stand over them. Clearly, there is a greater need for accuracy, clarity and consistency in terms of the reporting of all housing statistics be they from the approved housing bodies or whoever else.. I have no difficulty with them all being social housing units but let us break down the figures. We need to have an understanding and reach agreement because, quite frankly, there has been a lot of misunderstanding. There has also been a lot of criticism about journalists and reporters in terms of these reports. I do not know what the issue is but I do know that we need to be consistent across the board.

I wish to acknowledge that the officials in the Department have done a very good job even though the task has been difficult. Let me give an example. The Minister has asked chief executive officers to circulate this matter to their councillors. However, councillors have contacted me to say that they did not receive the circular. I took the liberty of contacting the councillors and I received a range of replies. I wish to note that the date of the letter is 18 April and that the date and the Minister's signature can be found on the back of the letter. I can supply the replies that I received to the Minister later. A number of councillors have contacted me and I am happy to make their emails available to him. They informed me that the statistics are all rubbish and untrue and, clearly, the figures were not the ones that their chief executive told them. In response, I said that there must be a misunderstanding or difficulty. I can assure the Minister that the councillors were so annoyed with the statistics that they decided to contact me. We have the housing assistance payment, HAP, the rental assistance scheme, RAS, various social housing schemes, and legislation, and there is a lot of confusion. I do not suggest that anybody has told lies but we need to be confident enough to be able to stand over the figures. In general, we need the statistics to be validated, verified and to have integrity. There must also be consistency in terms of the approach adopted by all of the 31 local authorities, the Department and in how the Minister answers questions in the Dáil, Seanad and anywhere else. All of that would give us a bit of comfort. Now that we know what the problem is we can strategically set out to do something about the matter.

Pillar 1 contains 38 actions. I note that there has been no change in the status of any of the sections from the last time the Minister reported to us. I refer to the system before us. The Minister knows what is in the circular. No. 1.23 reads: "A circular has issued to all LAs." It might be no harm if he considered the matter again.

I wish to acknowledge the amazing progress that has been made in reducing the number of rough sleepers on our streets and assisting them, particularly during Storm Emma. There has been great collaboration between the Department, the McVerry Trust and Focus Ireland. All of that Trojan work flushed out people that we did not know anything about, which is good. Many of them are now in the system.

I have a big problem with the local authority housing targets set by the Minister. I personally believe that the targets are not ambitious enough and lack imagination, and councillors around the country share my view. The Minister seems to be happy with the targets but the people involved in the housing sector are not. I ask him to explain the rationale behind his targets. I detect that he is very supportive of the councils and their staff, which I admire. I support them too but I want them stretched and I want them to deliver on those houses. I ask him to talk about the matter.

I want to discuss Pillar 2 and the long delay in establishing a regulator for the approved housing bodies, AHBs. Why the delay? Is it due to a lack of legislation or whatever? I ask the Minister to touch base on this important matter.

Social housing is a big issue but I have chosen just two issues to discuss with the Minister. There is a proposal for the site at Shanganagh Castle owned by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. Strangely, the county council is unaware of the proposal. Nobody seems to know what is happening with the site. Can the Minister tell me what is happening today? Is his Department funding the proposal?

The Dundrum Central Mental Hospital site comprises 36 acres. We are in the business of forward planning and the site offers one of the greatest development opportunities in south County Dublin. Today, the National Economic & Social Council, NESC, published a report on State buildings and lands and I ask the Minister to comment on its findings. In order for us to get our act together we need to forward plan. I wish to remind everyone that the buildings will become vacant in less than two years so a new arrangement must be made for this major State asset. We must decide how the site can be released thus enabling somebody to develop a master plan, and the site will require a master plan because it is too large for a Part 8 development. I urge the Minister to get that project working and ticking over so that by the time the buildings become vacant in two years time, a master plan will have been approved and implemented or a Government decision made. The Government may decide not to utilise all of the site. These are just some of the points that I wanted to share with the Minister.