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

In his opening comments Senator Boyhan talked about the importance of having targets. I agree with that because targets bring transparency and provide for accountability. Targets also help us drive delivery, although we do not always reach those targets, but they will also show us what is working and what is not, so it is important that we have them and work to them.

Regarding the support of my Department, I am well aware of the needs of my Department. Some reconfiguration has happened recently in terms of bringing in additional staff at assistant secretary level to help reorganise some functions and help us drive additional aspects of Rebuilding Ireland more quickly. There are many stakeholders involved, not just the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. There is also the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the Department of Finance and a number of agencies such as the Housing Agency, the Housing Finance Agency, and the National Development Finance Agency, NDFA, which is important in terms of some of the issues to which I will refer concerning Shanganagh. Work has been continuing in Shanganagh. It is not as if nothing has been happening. We have been trying, between the NDFA and the county council, to get the financial model right so that it works when we do it. The worst thing to do would be to have got the numbers wrong. The financial modelling is complex when one is trying to develop a site like the one in question. A delivery board is now in place. I would have no problem with the committee meeting the delivery board to hear about its plan and how quickly it wants to see it happen. We have staff out there today meeting relevant officials to discuss the project. We continue to work on the project. Last week I had a meeting with the vice president of the European Investment Bank to talk about wider ambition concerning the delivery of affordable housing that we want to drive. I understand that in January or February of next year the Enniskerry Road project tender will be awarded as the process is nearing completion.

The heads of the Bill for the Land Development Agency are ready and I want to bring them to the Cabinet. We have one more Cabinet meeting before the end of the calendar year and it is my intention to bring the Bill to the Cabinet if we can finalise the heads. I am also going to announce the interim board at that point, but that depends on being able to get that item onto the agenda of the meeting. It is a busy time of year to try to get something on the agenda. We will continue to work full steam ahead with the Land Development Agency. It is up and running already as a body, just not under statutory legislation. We have money that we can now appropriate to it this year, thanks to the Supplementary Estimate that was agreed last night. The agency is almost ready to submit planning permission on some of the first sites. The agency is working and it is going well given that it was only established a couple of months ago, but the legislation is important in terms of it being able to capitalise further projects over the course of next year.

An Bord Pleanála is independent. A new chairperson was recently appointed who has come from the Department, so that person is well aware of what we want to achieve under Rebuilding Ireland and the task at hand. Additional board members above the usual number have been appointed. New staff have been appointed to the new delivery team. When it comes to the multi-unit developments, those that comprise more than 100 homes and more than 200 student spaces, the agency has met its timelines in 100% of cases. Thousands of homes have been approved in the past year under the new fast-track delivery. The system is going well. While I have not spoken to the new chair in detail about the e-planning programme, I spoke to the outgoing chair about it in terms of the progress that had been made and the further work that is under way to its ICT system. An Bord Pleanála has seen its workload increase significantly in recent years and, as a result, we have given it additional resources and funding and we will continue to do so.

In terms of data published by the Department, it depends on the data. We monitor certain things on an ongoing basis and we produce monthly information, for example, on planning permissions. Other data will emerge at other intervals. It depends on where we collect information, for example, whether we are collecting it from local authorities directly or regional leads who are collecting it from local authorities. There is a statistician in the Department and an entire section which does that work. Data go to various levels of management to be checked and verified. Most information is then published. As Minister, I will take a look and, if I have questions, I will query some of the data as to whether I think they make sense or if something adds up. Data go through a number of checks and balances in that regard. Other data are published separate to us which we always look at to see how they compare with data produced by us or one of our agencies. We examine whether they confirm a trend or question a trend. A considerable amount of work goes into data and we constantly try to improve our data collection methods. We are examining ways of improving data collection when it comes to those in emergency accommodation. I asked the Central Statistics Office, CSO, to take on board the responsibility for counting the number of completions, and since then we have that information, which is much better than relying solely on extrapolations from ESB connection data. I understand the need to improve our data constantly and make sure that the data we publish help inform the public debate and what needs to be done.

Senator Boyhan asked specific questions about the various pillars and whether the table is updated. I have information on approved housing body regulation. We have information on the voluntary bodies, which is being led by the Housing Agency, in terms of getting housing bodies involved in the voluntary level of regulation, but we are moving to statutory regulation. We are drafting a priority Bill which will not make it onto the Statute Book this year but we expect it to be introduced early next year. We will continue to work with housing bodies to help the smaller ones in particular. Tier 1 housing bodies are smaller organisations or volunteers and we want to get them in line with the voluntary regulation before we move to full statutory regulation. Classification is an issue that is being led by the Department of Finance. We are treating that as an accountancy issue that will not impact on our delivery from housing bodies.

Senator Boyhan also asked about rapid delivery under the first pillar. Under action 1.30, Dublin City Council put a framework in place for volumetric build apartments. That has been in the newspapers and we hope to publish it before the end of the year. The council has been working to do that. Once we have the framework, we can run mini competitions from that in each local authority to start building rapid delivery upwards housing.

Another action under that pillar concerns modular clusters. We are progressing well with that. Three sites have been identified for modular clusters. That framework will be in place by the end of the year. Galway and Louth are already advancing on those sites.

I will have to come back to the Senator on the number of people transitioning from mental health accommodation as I do not have that information to hand.