Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming in and briefing us on the update to the Estimates. I commend him on his work. He probably has one of the most difficult portfolios in the Government. Considerable and significant progress has been made during the year and I am conscious the Department is going to have a strong final quarter.

Needless to say, colleagues beside me will not agree but I am very much of the view that the Minister is getting to grips with the crisis. It is an unprecedented crisis and requires an all-hands-on-deck approach. The Minister has taken a strong leadership role in this regard.

There are a few issues I want to pick up on. We are never going to pass up a chance to have a good kick at Irish Water. It is disappointing that body is looking to reallocate funding. I would like to think all agencies are as serious about resolving the housing crisis as the Minister is but it has not dawned on Irish Water yet that there is a crisis and it has a key part to play. I will give a local example. The third- and fourth-largest towns in Longford are Ballymahon and Edgeworthstown. We cannot build any houses there at present because Irish Water does not have capacity in its treatment plants. I have made several inquiries about this in my time here over the past two years. The first reply to a parliamentary question I got back from Irish Water said it would have capacity in 2023 and the latest one states it will be 2025. I suppose I was naive and believed the first reply when I got it but I know now not to believe any such replies from Irish Water. What level of engagement is there with Irish Water? Has the Department identified the likes of those situations? It is crazy. If we look at Ballymahon, Center Parcs is extending its resort and will doubtless have to provide its own treatment plant. The company is going to struggle to get staff. A key challenge experienced by the company when trying to recruit senior management is that the housing stock simply is not there for them. That is one of the questions I would like the Minister to come back to me on.

A number of months ago he advised county councils that where rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and housing assistance payment, HAP, tenants have been given notice to quit, the council can engage and buy those properties without seeking prior approval. Is the Minister able to give us any indication of the level of take-up on that by local authorities? I am aware he may not have it off the top of his head but it would be good to see. Are local authorities actively engaging with that initiative?

I appreciate extra staff have been put into the local authorities. Again, I can only reference what I am seeing myself. When it comes to getting houses back into stock, Longford County Council is the lowest in the country. The key issues there are the existing staff within the council and trying to recruit contractors to do the work. It would be good if we could get more craft workers into the local authority itself. Money is the perennial issue but it would be good to get more for those works. I am conscious the framework for Longford County Council is due for renewal next year. At the minute it is limited to possibly two or three contractors. When I speak to contractors, they say it is too onerous for them to try to get on the framework and then tender for the work. If we have just two or three contractors, we are going to have more expense. We therefore need to do something that is going to make it more attractive for more contractors to look at this work. That will ultimately help us to turn it around much quicker.

On the housing adaptation grants, the Minister has progressively increased that budget since coming into office but I am keen to see more done on that as well.

Another item on my list of demands for the Minister for the new year is that we should engage on the road networks. I will cite another Longford example. We are looking at an N4 upgrade. It was stalled when the economy crashed and is potentially back on track. The Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, intervened when it was paused and let it go to the next stage, so we are looking at route selection at the moment. The problem is that a large track of land either side of the route corridor has been sterilised and that is affecting potential land development. With the best will in the world, that bypass, were it to go ahead, will not do so for ten years and yet there is a significant swath of land within that which is held up for development.

Returning to what I said about Irish Water, it is notable that in the context of the new zoned land tax, Longford County Council has exempted both Ballymahon and Edgeworthstown because you cannot build in those areas and therefore, we cannot realistically hit people with a tax. On the one hand, we are trying to activate land and get people to get their land into the market and open it up for builders, but at the same time another agency that should have an intrinsic investment in resolving this problem is not stepping up to the plate and doing what it needs to do.

I am pleased we are going to have strong delivery in the final quarter. As I said, the Minister has a very difficult task but he has met it head on. I greatly admire his enthusiasm. We have seen significant progress in the area of housing this year and I am confident we are getting to grips with it.

I would be remiss if I did not mention affordable housing for rural Ireland. I thank the Minister for engaging with me on the specific issues we are having in Longford. By way of update, officials from the council are coming to Dublin next week to meet key Department members to try to come up with a bespoke solution for affordable housing in County Longford. I am pleased we are at that point and am increasingly confident we may be able to get a bespoke solution for Longford before the end of the year. It might be something that can be replicated across other counties that find themselves in a similar situation as well.

We have many challenges with housing in rural Ireland. The Minister will have seen the Daft.ie report on rentals this week. Traditionally, Longford was the-----