Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is the other reason for trying to increase what the local authorities are doing directly. That might be one are the Department might want to look at. Another area, and Mr. Doyle and I have had a few conversations about this, is the design. Mr. Doyle did give a response with regard to standardised design in the correspondence we got back from the Department recently. In that, Mr. Doyle said the Department has seen very positive responses, with many new projects using the Design Manual for Quality Housing standard design. I know what he means by that because he has explained it to me and the committee many times. I would expect that. A review was then carried out. The Social Housing Design, Approval and Delivery: Process and Procedures Review 2017 recommended that "the promotion of optional standard internal layout type templates should be advanced in order to realise potential benefits in terms of resourcing at design stage and the production of components and build packages at production stage." It is a bit of a mouthful. However, the reply from the Department stated that "This review did not make any recommendation in respect of standard design for the whole build as it was understood that this would raise a large range of practical, contractual, legal and potentially procurement issues, quite apart from concerns with regard to the potential for a monotonous public realm, contrary to government policy to promote quality in the built environment."

To break down what that means in plain English, it is about not having all houses looking the same or a monotonous public realm. As I said previously to the officials, a lot of the big builders in the State are using the very same template for housing design on multiple sites in different locations. The number of changes they make is minimal. They have no problem with that. Surely to God, in the middle of a housing crisis, no councillor and nobody in the Dáil would argue too much with the officials if houses were a little monotonous looking. In other words, the person in Wexford could live in a house that does not look too dissimilar from one in Sligo.

On external works, the Department went on to state in its reply that it can be appreciated that the design of external works is entirely site specific and does not readily admit to standardisation. It does not explain why. It just says that every site configuration, and site levels, involve different lengths of roads, different pavement widths and different slopes of roads. However, the gradient of the roads, etc., has nothing to do with design. That is a waffly answer. The reply further states that underground services run in different directions on different sites - of course they will - and will differ in design, for instance, different sizes of sewer pipes, etc., to suit the number of dwellings being served. That is true of every private site, however. That is a cop-out. I read the reply very carefully yesterday because I am trying to understand the resistance to having similar plans. I do not get it.

I say this in a constructive way. That lengthy response from the Department is the most comprehensive written response we have got so far on this. I do not see a block to using more standardised design, not alone to speed up delivery but to reduce cost, because there is the not insignificant matter of the 11% plus on architectural fees that I am being told by senior officials is being spent on architects. I am saying this in terms of speeding up-----