Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would like to welcome the Minister and his Department here today. I think everybody acknowledges and we all agree that we need more housing. In County Louth, one of the counties mentioned, the waiting time to receive a home was a maximum of two or three years when I was on the council 20 or 30 years ago. This week it is at least eight and a half years. In fact, it is rapidly becoming the case that people's children will be teenagers before they get a home. A lot of those children went on the housing list at the age of ten or 11. It is a very serious and acute problem. The Minister is dealing with it properly in my view, and I think that some of the solutions are quite radical. He is cutting through the red tape.

The point I hear most from the Minister concerns the accountability of the local authorities. The Department does not build housing. It makes sure that the funds are provided to councils to do that, and the Minister's other policy issue is to remove any blockages that might be in the way, administratively, bureaucratically, planning-wise and so on. The figures on fast-track planning with An Bord Pleanála that the Minister provided show that a significant number of new developments have been authorised. I know that in County Louth there are more starts now than there ever were before. I just want to make this point. Nobody has a monopoly of concern on this matter. Everybody has the same wish - that any family that needs proper decent accommodation has its needs met. In Drogheda by the end of the first quarter of next year there will be 155 more families in local authority housing than there are today. That is the first time that has happened in years. In Ardee there will be more than 100 families in housing, the biggest number we have had in years. In Dundalk, I understand there are at least 100 new families who will be in homes by this time next year.

That is hugely important. It is not anywhere like a solution but the Minister and his Department are getting there. Far from knocking people off housing lists and those kinds of allegations, Louth County Council has set up the vacant homes scheme in the county and it leads the country on putting families into homes that had been boarded up. More than 60 houses were boarded up, empty and abandoned this time last year but families are about to move into these viable, proper homes that meet their needs. We have to have perspective in this debate. It is true that things are bad and what happened in our country is appalling but we are getting to grips with it.

I welcome the appointment of vacant homes officers in each county. I presume there will be a national plan. Will someone in the Department will drive the agenda because that would be hugely important? The Minister said, kindly, that some local authorities are doing the business and others are not doing their job. It is essential that counties be given targets. If Louth can produce 60 homes in a 12-month period, at least 2,000 homes could be identified by this time next year, which could be occupied in addition to the other homes that are being built.