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

I thank Deputy Ó Broin for his questions and for acknowledging the huge amount of work done by the officials. It is always appreciated when they are acknowledged for the hard work they do. They give this committee a lot of time and they are happy to do so.

As the Deputy said, we are roughly half way through Rebuilding Ireland. While the spend on emergency accommodation has increased, not all of it is spent on the provision of emergency accommodation. A lot of that spend is on prevention as well. That does not mean there is not an issue in terms of people needing to have supports coming from Government and local authorities. It is not the only measure of the success of the plan. Looked at in isolation, it tells only one story. The additional spend for the delivery of new homes is another way of measuring the success of the plan, as are other measures such as planning permissions, commencement notices and so on. As always what is important is not how much we spend but how we spend it. In terms of Rebuilding Ireland, we know that in 2020 and 2021 we will be spending more money getting people into the stock of social housing that we will have. HAP will always exist. There will be always people who want to avail of it but we will be spending our money in a better and more efficient way when we are spending on increasing the stock rather than the amount we are spending now on HAP. That will happen over the course of the plan in terms of a reprogramming of money.

On modular hubs, what is important is that we can provide people with quality accommodation that is temporary. We are building amazing homes. In all of the new housing schemes that have opened recently, the quality of housing is fantastic, as it should be. Emergency accommodation also has to be of the highest standard possible. These modular clusters are different. We do not yet have them in Ireland but they have worked successfully in the UK. We want to progress them here. In regard to standards, we regularly hear that there is too much red tape and the standards are too high and so on. What we are seeking to do is in line with the successful projects in the UK, in particular a development in Scotland which comprises approximately 40 modular homes. The type of regulations needed are different from those which apply in respect of an apartment building because it comprises multi-units or in respect of stackable rapids in a volumetric scheme. I have a more detailed note which I can supply to the Deputy in regard to the changes that have been made. Everything is being done in terms of ensuring that minimum standards are not breached, in respect of heating and fire regulations and the security and safety of the building in terms of its structural integrity. This is not about half measures. Rather, it is about making sure we are not gold plating what needs to be done in terms of what has been successful in other countries.

On the social housing targets, the breakdown for quarter 3, as per the published report, is: new build, 1,764; voids, 605; acquisitions, 1,661; leasing, 476; HAP, 13,741 and RAS, 534.

We talked about leasing in the committee yesterday evening. With regard to our targets for leasing and what we wanted to achieve in the first year, it was working well. When we look at what has been delivered and what might be delivered under enhanced leasing, it is not delivering what we thought it would. We have sought expressions of interest on enhanced leasing twice. We have to look at it now to see what other changes need to be made to deliver more quickly. I think I know where a couple of the sticking points are but they are ones that cannot be resolved on our own in the Department. I have asked the Minister of State, Deputy English, to engage with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to see if further changes can be made to the enhanced leasing programme. There was considerable interest in these programmes but some of the interested parties did not have all of the requirements. There were also other concerns raised about things on our side. The Minister of State, Deputy English, will examine them with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform because we have to deliver a certain number of homes through leasing.

As a result of leasing not hitting the targets we wanted it to hit, as we discussed yesterday evening, we have had to do more with acquisitions. We have done more with acquisitions because we could get the money to do it. It is still value for money in certain local authorities outside of Dublin. Housing bodies are pursuing acquisitions because they make sense for their own programmes. There have been some bank acquisitions we have been able to get our hands on which has been a good thing.

With regard to the pipeline report and Traveller-specific accommodation, we are looking at it. We allocate funding and we have the policies. It is a priority. One of the difficulties we have is getting planning permission and local objection when it comes to Traveller accommodation. The committee needs to have a conversation about the role of elected representatives when it comes to objecting to planning permissions because it is still happening. Citizens will always have the right to object, whether on spurious grounds or not. We might see more of it now as the local elections come closer. Some candidates might seem to be acting in the interest of the local community - they are not - by supporting local residents' objections to new housing whether social housing, Traveller-specific accommodation or private housing because that is also happening. It speaks to a bigger problem we have with people who are fortunate to be living in an area and who own a home. We need to provide more homes.

We need to increase the densification of our urban centres. That is just a fact. In many parts, which are very close to very expensive infrastructure such as transport infrastructure or schools, densities are not being used efficiently. That means building up. To come to the latter part of the Deputy's question, height is not necessarily a way of achieving density. Anyone who has helped to design a city or county development plan, as I have, knows density is achieved in many other ways. That is why the first thing we did when it came to looking at apartment guidelines was to look at density, the number of units per core, car-parking provision and the aspect ratio, which are all things that would help to provide more apartments on a site. Height helps. We saw it on a previous piece of work we did. When it gets to a six-storey shoulder height, for which the guidelines now provide, it absolutely helps in terms of density. They are trying to make a six-storey shoulder height the default position in our urban cores. As we go beyond that, the height densification question becomes one of diminishing returns but it allows us to have things like mixed use which we need to see. We can have other uses that are not just about people living in the building but also about people working there or using it for other types of community and sporting facilities. In terms of liveability, height allows us to do more on a particular site than increase densification and provide more apartments.