Mr. Terry Sheridan:

Since the inception of the scheme in July 2017. The first permissions were not granted until January 2018 and we have been monitoring it since then. Granting planning permission is not the sole factor in ensuring delivery of housing supply but it is the one factor we and the Minister have control over. However, other factors such as access to capital and land are equally important in this regard. There may be situations where developers, on getting planning permission, are still in the process of completing schemes or obtaining finance to progress the permissions they have been granted. It became apparent early in 2019 that things were not happening as quickly as we would like, but one has to allow a reasonable timeframe from the granting of permission to the commencement of development on site. As I indicated, this was something that was focused on by the review group that reported back to us last week on the effectiveness of the scheme, and the group made particular recommendations in this regard. It is ultimately a matter for the Minister, on foot of that review and under the provisions of the Act, to come forward with his conclusions on the review group report and any recommendations within it, and to submit his conclusions on that report, which we only received last week, to the Oireachtas by the end of October.