Mr. Barry Lynch:

I will start in any event, a Chathaoirligh. This is all about supply and we certainly need to increase the level of it. We have been developing out all of our own land and we have a couple of fairly large schemes coming in Ashbourne and in Farganstown in Navan. The housing delivery action plan itself shows where we are targeting in respect of individual settlements. In particular, we can see that there would be a particular constraint in Ashbourne, as one example, where a great deal of building has not been happening. We have acquired a site there where we are also building on the former Department of Education site which we bought. We concluded that sale there last year. We are certainly targeting settlements with the biggest population and the greatest need.

We are also looking to include one-bedroom houses in our schemes where possible. We have to include a mix in any event, but 80% of our demand is between one-bedroom and two-bedroom houses. In some cases, we might have considered a two-bedroom application, depending on the circumstances, but we are also trying to increase the number of one-bedroom houses as a matter of course in our schemes.

The Deputy mentioned HAP tenants’ notices to quit. We have to look at those on a case-by-case basis because even though the landlord may have given a notice to quit, they may not necessarily want to sell the house to a local authority and may want it for a family member, or for themselves, in which case the purchaser solution would not work. If we can find an alternative to direct purchase, we will as well, if we can work through an allocation, because sometimes people will be in HAP for a very short space of time. There would could be a slight anomaly in that someone may only be in the system for two years and someone may be on the list for ten years, so one has to try to balance all of those considerations when doing this.

The house would obviously also have to be subject to survey and should be up to rental standards, but there is always a timeline before it is inspected. If one was suddenly buying the house within six months of an allocation, one would have to go in to see if it was suitable for an acquisition. There are, therefore, a number of considerations and we look at it on a case-by-case basis. We are hopeful that the moratorium on evictions will also slow that down a bit.

We have also been focusing on getting families who are in long-term emergency accommodation out into acquisitions. This is being tackled on a number of fronts.

On windows and doors, while we do a certain amount of them each year, we will certainly use the allocation for priority medical needs first. There will be approximately €2.9 million of an allocation each year for disabled grants, adaptation and mobility grants, and so on and so forth. Sometimes, we receive an additional allocation each year and we may also be able to do some windows and doors, but medical priority has to come first, where people who need to be discharged from hospital will always receive priority. We used the funds available to the best effect for that.

I notice that there is one particular approved housing body development mentioned by the Deputy, where the contractor building it has actually gone into examinership. Works are still ongoing on site in that particular case. It was a developer who employed the contractor, so the developer has taken over responsibility. We expect them to complete out this project and they have undertaken to do so. We hope that that will continue and will be delivered. The timeframe for that is that this development should be done by the middle of next year, one way or another. That is our expectation based on what we have been told so far, in any event.

The eligibility for social housing in local authorities' threshold in the media reports I have seen on this would suggest that change is being made from January of next year.

We expect that will increase the number of people who will be eligible. The social housing list will go up based on that. Some people who are now borderline will certainly qualify.

We claim departmental funding in arrears, as we go along. Every month, we make claims for any scheme we do, be it for direct construction by the council or CALF funding we have advanced to an AHB. We are working away in that regard. There does not seem to be any shortage of capital at departmental level. We are maximising what we can draw down under the different programmes. As we go through the process, we pay out the funding and claim it back straight away.