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

I wish to focus on the social housing output report. On the basis of the figures the Minister has given us, only 35% of the new builds have been delivered as of quarter 3, which means 65% remain to be delivered in the final quarter. That is very worrying. I know we will not know the final output until the end of the year but to have to deliver or complete 65% of the target in three months seems a very big ask. How reassured is the Minister at this stage that he will come back to us in January or early February with 100% delivery on the new builds?

I wish to pick up on something Deputy Boyd Barrett said. When Mr. Brendan Kenny was before the committee, he made it very clear that he does not count the expensive casual vacancies as voids. The Minister can check the transcript. Will the Minister consider taking them out of the output report? It is very helpful that he counts them separately and I accept the legitimacy of doing that, but they are not additions to the stock anymore. They were at an earlier stage in the programme but that is no longer the case.

I am not challenging anybody, but I wish to point out that the void programme has changed. Although it is useful to have the figure, it should not be in the output report.

On the RTB, again, the information the Minister has provided is helpful. Will the proposed legislation which members have not yet seen give the RTB the power to impose fines on landlords in breach of rent reviews and rent pressure zones without having to go to the courts? Will it be able to issue a civil sanction such as a fine? I urge caution in regard to the level of referrals to the board. The RTB used to have approximately 88 board meetings a year because of the volume of board decisions. That has been dramatically reduced, which has made it more efficient, so I have a concern regarding the level of referrals.

On cost rental, one of my concerns is that we do not now what will be the starting rents. We have been told that for the properties on Enniskerry Road it may be approximately 80% of market rate. Part of the financing problem is that if a person has an EIB loan, for example, or a private sector loan over 25 years, and he or she wants to pay down that loan and cover the cost of the management and maintenance of the unit, the start-off rent must be quite high. If that person was able to combine an EIB loan over a 25 year period with a capital advance loan facility from the State for ten years thereafter, for example, the start-off rent could be significantly reduced. I recently tabled a parliamentary question to the Minister asking whether he would be willing to consider amending the capital amounts loan facility arrangements to allow such a loan under conditions similar to those currently in place, involving 30% of the loan value, and for that to be paid down after the EIB loan. That would bring starting rents down from more than €1,000 to closer to €700 or €800, which would be eminently more affordable. I expected that to have been considered in the budget and I ask the Minister to look at it again.

On the serviced sites fund, I am a little confused by the report provided to the committee. Most members thought the serviced sites fund was to be based on the Ó Cualann model such that there would be no reference to market prices and a deduction but, rather, would involve discounting the cost of land and site servicing for the local authority and selling the property at close to the economic cost of its production. The report indicates that the serviced sites fund is more akin to the local infrastructure housing activation fund. I ask the Minister to provide more detail in that regard.

On home loans and to pick up on a point made by Deputy Darragh O'Brien, 2,222 loans were underwritten as of the end of September, 1,134 of which were approved. My understanding is that the figures indicate a drawdown on approximately 200 of the loans by the end of September. It is still within the first year of the scheme and we must be cautious about drawing conclusions, but it is a cause for concern that there have been more than 2,000 indicative approvals and 1,000 formal approvals but only 200 drawdowns. Will the Minister give any indication as to why there has been a drawdown of less than 10% of those eligible to apply and approximately 20% of those approved?