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

I thank the witnesses for taking the time to travel to the committee meeting. Key issues for the committee are the targets for meeting social and affordable housing need under Rebuilding Ireland and the delivery of those units. I have the same questions for each local authority on that. Many members are concerned that the targets, in particular for what many of us call "real social housing", namely, units owned by local authorities or approved housing bodies, are far too low to meet the overall level of need in each of the witnesses' local authority areas. What I mean by that is that if one takes the current net housing list and the HAP transfer list, it gives one the real social housing need in a local authority area. If one matches that against the targets in Rebuilding Ireland, including builds, acquisitions and leasing, one third at best of the real social housing need will be met over the next three years. While the Minister will reply "Yes, but everyone's need will be met through HAP and RAS, etc.", are local authorities concerned about the wide gap between additions to the real social housing stock and the level of need according to their housing and HAP transfer lists?

The next matter is affordable housing. I appreciate that many local authorities are waiting to see what happens with the cost-rental pilot projects in Dublin, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and Cork. The serviced sites fund was initially made available to only a small number of local authorities, that is, to 11 of them, but the expectation is that it will be made available to others. What is the view in the housing departments within the witnesses' local authorities as to the level of need for affordable housing, including purchase and rental, in their administrative areas? If they have no idea of the need, which I suspect is the case given that I have no idea of what it is in my own local authority area, what must we do to establish what the level of need is? Is the delivery of affordable rental or purchase homes led by local authorities and approved housing bodies factoring into their plans over the next number of years?

The third question relates to the infamous one-stage approval process. Have the local authorities represented here today used the one-stage process? If so, how much use was made of it? If not, why has it not been used? Is it because there are no projects of larger size or due to the risks involved? What would the local authorities like to see in the amended one-stage process regarding the upper financial limits or a greater sharing of risk with the Department? The age-old question is whether the four-stage process is improving. We are talking to some local authorities which say it is not improving and that timelines are too slow with too much back and forth between local authorities and the Department at the approval stage. When the witnesses' counterparts from other local authorities appeared before the committee recently, we asked them what we could do to speed up procurement. Have any of the witnesses' authorities considered moving from having to tender every new build project to regional framework agreements whereby clusters of local authorities would work together on a big bag tender to get a certain number of contractors on the shelf for developments of up to 50 to 100 units? What can we do? Based on the witnesses' expertise on the procurement end, what could the committee argue for with the Department to speed that up? The delay this causes in delivering projects is a source of frustration for many local authorities.