Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Apologies for being late.

In some sense, none of us knows what will happen. We could spend a great deal of time speculating but our conversation - as with NERI and the ESRI last week - is, accepting the fact that we do not know and considering what contingency plans can be put in place so that if X happens, B can be the response, and if Y happens, C can be the response. In particular, I was struck by what the ESRI stated last week. It gave the committee clear warnings in terms of the impact, particularly on private sector supply, if negotiations go particularly badly, hard Brexit or not.

It gave us figures such as, for example, 50% of key building products like electrical components and 30% of timber products pass through Britain. Obviously there are also the issues of the flow and cost of labour and the potential disruption to the cost of finance. If I understood the presentation last week correctly, for us they were saying the biggest warning was factors that could slow down the supply of private sector housing.

The departmental officials clearly cannot tell us how much that supply is going to be slowed down until we see it. What I am not seeing in the written presentation or hearing in the answers I have heard so far is that if supply starts to slow down, as we move through the Rebuilding Ireland and national development plan, NDP, targets, what contingency plans could be put in place or are being prepared to address that. For example, a portion of the social housing targets in Rebuilding Ireland are local authority or approved housing body builds and acquisitions, and a very large proportion are private sector short or long-term leased. Meeting those targets requires the Rebuilding Ireland targets to proceed as written in the document. If private sector supply starts to slow down, that means meeting the housing assistance payment, HAP, rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and leasing targets could be affected. Is the Department discussing, in that eventuality, shifting funding priorities to ramp up the direct provision of social housing by local authorities and approved housing bodies by a larger quantum than is in Rebuilding Ireland? That is my first question.

Likewise, in the overall housing system, while I do not necessarily agree with this way of looking at it, it is the Government's policy that increasing supply overall will reduce cost and increase affordability. If private sector supply is reducing, are there contingency plans, for example, to increase the level of investment in the delivery of affordable housing above and beyond what has already been agreed to absorb some of that shortfall in straight private sector supply? While I appreciate that some of those contingency planning discussions are Government decisions rather than departmental considerations because they would require increased resources or shifting the allocation of resources, can the Department give the committee any comfort that those are the sort of contingency planning conversations that are happening within the Department and between Departments?

My big fear is that whatever about people's views about Rebuilding Ireland, and we have different views on this committee which we discussed last week, it is not Brexit-proofed. It was produced at a time such that it is relatively blind to Brexit, and I believe that is a fair point. Likewise, Mr. Allen's submission today makes clear that population targets in the national planning framework do not take a hard Brexit or a significant Brexit related increase in population movements into account, and it is also likewise with Construction 2020. Perhaps it is too harsh a phrase to say the core policy documents governing housing delivery are blind in this regard, but they were drafted irrespective of what happens with Brexit. As I came in, Ms Neary was commenting on Department guidelines and standards, land development agents etc., saying these are all things that would happen anyway. They are policy objectives in and of themselves as opposed to things that are being produced to Brexit-proof some of the negative scenarios.

My core question is whether contingency plans are being discussed and developed. Is there a particular focus on what the State will do if private sector supply is disrupted and whether the State can step in, either on the social or affordable side, and increase investment to pick up the slack there? What comfort can the Department give us that this is where the discussion is at? I fully appreciate that everything is hypothetical, but the Department and the Government still have to prepare for those hypothetical scenarios, particularly given the very negative impacts they could have on supply.