Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I know that officials expect a lot of units to be completed in the last quarter. If 1,014 local authority houses were built last year, that was poor. In the first six months of this year only 487 local authority houses have been built. Let us hope there is a big increase on that. That is all I can hope for.

I will ask about one related topic before I let other members come back. The issue concerns the housing summit the Department held on 17 September in the Custom House. I thank the witnesses for giving us information on that. The Department gave the committee a sheet of paper. I am not sure it was fully circulated over lunch. The document lists actions to be taken following the summit. These are notes taken by officials of the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government on the summit. In attendance were Mr. McCarthy, the Minister of State, Deputy English, the City and County Management Association, CCMA, and the Irish Council for Social Housing, ICSH.

How many years into the housing crisis are we? I know the Department will not use the term but it is an emergency for those who are affected. It has been quite a number of years. If homelessness has been highlighted since before 2014, we are certainly five years into the housing crisis. In that light, under the heading "Actions to bring forward", this is what the Department's notes of its meeting on that day with its Minister of State state:

More high-level/ national strategic collaboration between CCMA and AHB representatives in order to plan and develop best practice on a national basis. As it stands, we don’t have a view of how the shortfall against targets will be made-up; don’t have a view of the local plans at the level of the individual 31 local authorities.

Five years into the housing crisis, according to the minutes of a meeting attended by the Minister of State, the Secretary General, the CCMA and the body representing the approved housing bodies, the attendees state they do not have a view of the plans at the level of the 31 individual local authorities. Is it any wonder we are where we are when it comes to housing? If, as an occupant, I had read that four years ago, I would have thought those concerned should get their act together. Five years on, however, this is what we are being told.

The Department has made light of the lack of statutory regulation for approved housing bodies. It has spoken of the voluntary code but that has not delivered information that gives the Department a view of the plans at the level of the 31 individual local authorities. I can understand that the Comptroller and Auditor General might say that, and I believe he does say that in his report. However, I note this is stated in the minutes taken by the Department's own senior officials on its meeting four weeks ago with its Minister of State and the organisations I have mentioned. The Department still does not know what is happening in the 31 local authorities. We had hoped to make a bit of progress here today, but we are so badly prepared five years on that we do not even know what is happening in the local authorities. These are the Department's minutes.