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

Whenever there is a problem there is always a bit of blame to go around. That is why I looked for full transparency with local authorities at the beginning of this year, asking them to publish their targets for the year, making sure we had a layer of accountability that we had not had previously and that we could work to those targets throughout the year so that the members, as elected representatives, could see what their local authorities should have been doing and ask why they were not doing more. If they then said the Department has not given approval the members could ask me why it had not been approved. I could say it was an issue with a particular design or the financing or whatever it might be if there was a delay. That is the purpose of that programme and, in fairness to many colleagues, the number of requests that have come to the Department through written correspondence asking about a particular site has increased and from time to time that can help expedite things. I encourage members to look at the targets for their local authority areas and the details I have given them today and see where they can help if there are logjams in the system because we can all play a role in this.

The four-stage approval process is 59 weeks. That was agreed with the local authority managers. Where it works it works very well. It is very close, if not similar, to what happens in the private sector when it comes to design, planning, procurement and all the things that have to happen before going on site. We are not too far off where we should be but we can work it better and I am considering aspects of it again. Conversations are happening between me and other Ministers on this issue because I have heard it from enough people that I recognise we can look at it again.

An important point to make is that if we rush the development of any housing scheme we would not want to risk a problem arising in ten years time where it would need to be rebuilt, redeveloped or discover we have made a fundamental mistake in the planning, design or outline in that we have located the playground where it does not allow for passive supervision and, subsequently, find there is concern about anti-social behaviour or something happening behind people's houses rather than in front of them. One encounters all these different issues as one visits housing schemes up and down the country and finds the different ways they are designed are for very good reasons, and we want to take care in that respect and we do that.

Regarding the budget, I cannot tell the Senator what my full proposals are. There have been enough conversations in the media to get an idea of what we would like to achieve. We in the Department have moved away from the big bang budget day where the budget is a big surprise and a big review on the day by the Minister, Deputy Donohoe. We have a multi-annual budgetary framework for Rebuilding Ireland whereby we already know what funding is programmed into it and pretty much the funding for which programmes next year and the year after because it is a five to six-year plan. In respect of Project Ireland 2040, we have also taken that view in terms of long-term planning. The Senator knows there is a €4 billion urban regeneration fund. She will know the closing date for applications is tomorrow. We will announce people on foot of that in October with respect to the drawing down of €100 million in funding next year. We do not need to wait for the budget to be told that. That said, there will be a few items that will be covered in the budget regarding the way we will be spending money and some new initiatives. Those negotiations are currently ongoing. Anything that I can say publicly before the budget, I will say, but certain matters have to remain until the last minute because some decisions are only made at the last minute when we can get a proper idea of where the resources are going to be allocated as per priority not only within my Department but between other Departments and the Government.