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

One of my structured engagements was to meet another umbrella group of NGOs that represents every different group that helps people in emergency accommodation with the needs they have. We met as a group and there might have been 30 of us in the room. We spoke about the different problems being faced and potential solutions. It was a very good engagement but nobody has raised it with me directly about re-establishing or continuing the forum. I will take a look at it. I am very happy with the Department's constant engagement with the voluntary and NGO sector. We are not missing any gaps in recommendations or problems that might occur in the system.

There is a repurposed housing delivery unit. It spent the past couple of months going to each local authority with money, targets and construction reports to do a deep dive into what was planned for delivery, where it was to be delivered and the different ancillary questions. I asked the Minister of State, Deputy English, to drive the office and be politically responsible for it for me and ensure it could do its work. There are three people in the office and we will increase its resources. The person heading the office has done a fantastic job and that is why we have been able to bring about transparency to each authority and I hope this will drive greater accountability as well.

Much work was done to shorten the approval process to 59 weeks. Putting in every element of every stage, it seems like bureaucracy has gone mad, but this is very important, given the levels of funding we are talking about and some of the mistakes made in the past by local authorities.

I have responsibility for taxpayers' money. I am accountable to this committee and the Oireachtas. The Secretary General is accountable to the Committee of Public Accounts. I am, of course, accountable to the Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform regarding how that money is spent. We must make sure we have robust approval processes in place. At the same time, there should be no delay in that process, which is why the delivery unit is there. Where there is a delay, the delivery unit is there to untie that knot where it arises. I have been very open in communicating with every Member of the Oireachtas, any councillor, any Senator and any Deputy who wanted infomation. We have a mixed picture when we look at our local authorities and what they are doing around house building. Some of them have picked this back up very quickly while some are coming late to the game. The figures tell us that. Some local authorities need help. Some local authorities are interpreting policy in the incorrect way but when a Deputy brings that to my attention, we can get on to it immediately. A Deputy might come to me and say "well, we've been told by the local authority that they can't do staged payments". We can say that of course it can do staged payments and we then help them arrange that. We can untie these knots together using feedback from each constituency but also using the delivery unit to get on top of that. The 59 weeks is as much as we can shorten that in terms of the approval process.

The Deputy is right about activity. Some sites have been about to be built upon for far too long. People then start to question whether this is ever going to happen. I have had the privilege of being at a number of sites relating to regeneration such as Dolphin House and Park, recent ones where building is happening when for years, it was thought that it would not happen. It is good to see that but there is a lot more we need to do on those three sites in particular. We are not waiting on the affordable purchase scheme to be clarified with local authorities for procurement and building to happen. That needs to happen first before any of these homes can be tenanted. I did give the outlines of the affordable purchase scheme in January. If not this week, it will be early next week when I sign the commencement order and then we will have regulations. It will then be up to local authorities. We will give them some flexibility regarding how they manage things around the affordable purchase scheme. I also mentioned something around the €75 million and putting that out on the serviced sites fund. I will do that very shortly but I can come back to that. I am conscious of time.