Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will come back to the question I asked earlier about people on the housing lists who have received a notice to quit because the owner is selling. Have the witnesses advised their housing officers to ask the applicant if the landlord will sell to the local authority? Is that something they have instructed their housing officers to do so far and if not, is it something they will instruct their housing officers to do?

I appreciate it is a long journey and that many factors go into the ultimate decision and that there are criteria that have to be met.

On the issue of Traveller accommodation for Fingal, I am familiar with the Fingal boundary towards Ashtown and Dublin central and so on. At the site on the Ratoath Road there is a really bad stretch of road from Reilly's Bridge towards Cappagh Hospital. It is a dangerous road for anybody to live on. Entering on to it is not great and the Traveller halting site there does not have a good safe entrance onto that road. It is very dangerous and unsightly. Could Fingal County Council come back to me with a report on its plans for that? I do not need a specific answer today.

As regards the housing lists, both witnesses have indicated an average time historically of around six to seven years from when somebody applies to the local authority for housing to actually being housed. I assume, but I would like witnesses to confirm, that in that interim period of six to seven years all applicants receive a housing assistance payment and are being accommodated in private rented accommodation. It is only if the private rental accommodation is being sold and they received a notice to quit that they potentially face homelessness. I would come back to the value for money question between a family being put into emergency homeless accommodation at a cost of €70,000 or €80,000 per year versus long-term leasing solutions. My experience in the city of long-term leasing are brand new, A energy-rated apartments and homes that have been built to the highest standards and are often furnished. They are on a long-term lease of somewhere between 15 and 25 years, which if we take the cost of €300,000 works out at about €12,000 per year. Is that a fair description of what is happening in Fingal and south County Dublin and if their local authorities use long-term leasing? If that is the case are they really comfortable with eliminating long-term leasing over the next five to six years?

My final question is how their local authorities are being impacted by the arrival of Ukrainians and international protection refugees? If South Dublin County Council could answer first, and then Fingal County Council.