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

This is what delivers. We are for housing in the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. We want to make sure there are no unnecessary delays or blockages. We also want to make sure we get it right. We do not want this to proceed through the various stages and processes and fail at the last minute because the financial modelling was rushed. Much has been done. The NDFA is the expert on this. If it was as simple as saying the numbers work, it would have happened by now, so obviously there is a problem with the financial modelling that still needs to be resolved.

I will return to the questions by Deputy Ó Broin that I did not get to respond to. On the constitutional right to housing, not putting a right to housing into the Constitution will not get in the way of us building houses. It will not get in the way of us completing Rebuilding Ireland. It will not get in the way of us moving to the national development plan part of Project Ireland 2040. It will not get in the way of the commitment that one in five homes built will go to the social housing stock or all the many important things we need to do around affordability that can be delivered now because we have specific funding lines. We now have the first agreed-in-principle site under the serviced sites fund. We understand that but it is important for the public to understand that the fact there is not a constitutional right to housing or legislation that provides for a right to housing is not stopping us from delivering. The delivery of supply is ramping up quite dramatically.

As to whether there needs to be protection in the Constitution, the process is being handled by a separate committee looking at socio-economic rights and how we achieve that balance in society. Is it through constitutional amendment or legislation? People have different views on this. I heard Deputy O'Dowd on the radio with Eamon Delaney from the Hibernia Forum debating the role of the Constitution and what it is meant to enshrine. In recent conversations I have had with some people on a referendum on the public ownership of water, it has moved in part from being a debate on whether it should be in the Constitution to a debate about which part of the Constitution because, it is said, certain parts are stronger than others. I spoke to the Attorney General about it. It is nonsense. The Constitution is the Constitution. The Constitution is not the appropriate place in which to enshrine every law or right. We need to come to an understanding at some point about the role of the Constitution as we go through this transformative stage of our history where so much positive change is happening. The Constitution is the vehicle for that change.

I am open-minded about whether we need to put a right to housing into the Constitution. I cannot speak for the Taoiseach but I think he is also open-minded. The Government is not set in a direction on this. We are engaged in a process that has done the public good in terms of marriage equality and repealing the eighth amendment. We will continue with that process of Oireachtas committee engagement and coming to a determination of the next step in this public debate we are having. To return to my previous point, it is not getting in the way of delivery. If I felt it was getting in the way of delivery, we would be having a separate conversation. If I felt the lack of a law was getting in the way of delivery, we would be having a separate conversation about constitutional rights.

A question was asked about the Residential Tenancies Board and the powers coming under the legislation that is now published. We have allowed for two tracks and it will be up to the RTB to decide the appropriate one. We will be addressing it on Second Stage but I will go through very quickly how it is envisaged from some notes I made on the sanctioning regime before Second Stage. A complaint will be made or discovered by the RTB and an inspector will be appointed to investigate the complaint. As part of the inspection process, the landlord will have a right to make his or her views known about what he or she thinks of the complaint. There will be an independent panel of decision-makers appointed by the RTB and the report will go to a person on the panel. They will be referred to as decision-makers in the legislation. They will then make a decision as to what the sanction should be. It will go to the RTB board for a decision and it will formally issue the decision but the decision will be made by the decision-maker following a recommendation by the inspector. The landlord either accepts it or challenges it.

The decision-maker will effectively be able to decide, because we are allowing for new criminal offences, whether it warrants criminal pursuit of the landlord through the courts because he or she has breached one of these new offences of not co-operating with an inspection, not adhering to the rent pressure zone, not registering the tenancy or getting around the RPZ by using the substantial change provision in the wrong way. If it goes through the administrative civil sanction route, which is also provided for in the legislation, which is a fine of up to €15,000, the recovery of costs up to €15,000 and the publishing of the person's name on the website or in the newspapers, it will be up to the decision-maker to decide and then for the RTB to sanction the preferred route. We have allowed for both to make sure we are really giving a new power to the RTB and that we are cutting out any unnecessary time delays by allowing for an administrative sanction.

From time to time we see rogue landlords - they should not be called landlords - doing despicable things and, effectively, breaching people's human rights. We are telling the RTB that, if the breach is so severe and if it is that level of injustice, it can go the criminal route if it thinks it should try to get a prison sentence. We have allowed for both in the legislation under the new RTB Bill, which has been published. If we all have agreement on the proposed way forward, and I think we do from pre-legislative scrutiny and other things that have happened, we can move very quickly through the House if the committee schedules it.

Deputy Ó Broin talked about the assessment of Rebuilding Ireland. It has been completed. I got a couple of people independent from the Department to come into the Department to do some work on that and see if the home loan could be improved.

It is important to say that not all of the applications received were valid. Of the 2,850 assessed applications, which were the valid ones, 1,452 have been recommended for approval by the Housing Agency, so it is 51% or half. It then falls to the credit committee in the local authority to say yes or no about the loan. The total drawdown of loans to date is €47.6 million from the €200 million tranche. It is almost 25%. The scheme was only opened in February of this year. Anyone who has been through the mortgage process knows that it does take time to find the house one wants to buy, to get to sale agreed and to get through the process. The expected end of year drawdown is approaching €92.1 million. That is based on what we have in our tables in terms of the information that is coming in. We all know how popular a product this is, as people want to get a fixed-interest mortgage over the lifetime of the loan. I do not know if Deputy O'Brien has met anyone who has been fortunate enough to avail of it.