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

I will make a couple of initial points on turnkeys. There is a misperception around what a turnkey is. People hear the word "turnkey" and they think a house is built and completed and the local authority has decided to buy it and take the keys. In most instances, a turnkey is where the land is vacant, is not being developed at all and will not be developed but for the fact that the local authority has engaged and decided that there is land in a preferable location for social housing delivery and has negotiated the delivery of homes on that land all the way from that point through planning, permission and construction. In such cases, were it not for the local authority engaging, nothing at all would be built on such land in many instances. The word "turnkey" does not mean the housing is completed and the local authority is just collecting the keys. It is a confusion sometimes because the word "turnkey" does not reflect what it is and so when we have a public debate on this issue, people think we are just stepping in front of the buyer and taking the keys but that is not what is happening. It also allows us to provide social housing homes in areas where we do not have the land in the right area, which is really important.

We have told local authorities not to compete with first-time buyers, so where it is an individual house on a road, which is an acquisition and not a turnkey, and there is an engagement from a first-time buyer, the local authority is to back off. Where there are a significant number of homes where we might not have engaged before construction commenced, local authorities are told to back off. We are trying to manage this as best we can. Turnkeys are useful because they involve land in areas where we might not have land. They can also be more efficient and we need to make sure we are providing social housing in the right places, so they have an important function.

On the overall build that happened last year, there was not an over-reliance nationally on turnkeys but in some areas there would have been more than others because that is how the market was working and that was what we needed to do. It is an important part of delivery and the only real difference between it and what might be considered local authority builds is that it is not happening on local authority land. They have the land and it is in an area we want for social housing. Maybe they have already serviced it so it can move quite quickly or maybe they already have planning so we can move quite quickly and that is why we go with the term "turnkeys".

On the Senator's second question which was on Home Building Finance Ireland, that is operational as of the beginning of this year. It does not come under my remit but I understand there will be a report in July on the first six months of its operation that will go into the number of loans that have been approved, drawn down and everything else.