Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)

That is okay. I welcome Ms Leech and Mr. Taaffe and thank them for their opening statement.

Obviously, delivery is key. I have some questions on this. The witnesses set out that we need a 50% increase in annual output, just to meet the Government targets. Some of us would argue that the Government targets need to go further, but we will not dwell on that for now.

I wish to talk to the witnesses about speeding up delivery. One of the issues I have consistently raised with the Department, the Secretary General, Mr. Graham Doyle, and some of the officials is the reuse of the same plans. I am not arguing that we go back to 1930s-style or 1950s-style housing. Anybody who ever produced anything - whether it is a carpenter, welder or whoever it is - knows that the way to produce a lot of something, produce it efficiently at the cheapest price, get the best quality and do it in an efficient and swift manner is through mass production. I have not met anybody who wants affordable, social or cost-rental houses who would object to living in the same house in Wexford as people in Donegal or County Laois, where I live. The Department gives a bit of spoof on this. When officials are being questioned about this, as they have been in this committee and in the public accounts committee when I was Chair, they answer that they have standards. When I say standards, I mean the same plan. There are brilliant examples. I am sure every TD here can show examples of good housing. We need one-, two- and three-bedroom houses. In some areas, a different type of housing is needed.

We need high-density or low-density, depending on whether it is in Blackwater, Wexford town or Dublin. I was in Blackwater on Sunday, by the way. It was a bit windy but it was nice. We need houses for disabled people and the elderly. It is reckoned that between eight and ten designs are needed. Let the apartments take care of themselves for now; we want houses. Is it the case that the witnesses are being allowed? That is the first question I have. Is it the case that plans are being handed to them? Other county managers have told me that the cost of architectural designs is running up to 15%, which is lunacy, along with slowing things down and shuffling pieces of paper between the witnesses and the Custom House, which is more lunacy. There should be a standardised design for building. Even with the affordable units, you can always change what the porch looks like. You can put a different facade on one of them. One of them could be a plaster finish, one can have more brick or whatever. You can tweak them around to make them look different. As Cairn Homes and all of them are doing it, local authorities should be able to do it. Could the witnesses say a few words on the cost of architects?

On the procurement the witnesses are using, I welcome that local authorities are increasingly using design-and-build procurement processes. On the cost rental units, the witnesses' housing officials will tell them there is a huge gap out there. A whole range of people are coming in who will be elderly and living in expensive private rented accommodation. There are average rents of up to €2,700 or €2,800 in south Dublin at present. Rents are skyrocketing and rent pressure zones are not working. We need cost rentals for those people, that is, homes that are built not for profit, but where the financing of them can happen over 35 or so years to cover the cost of construction and maintenance, which is a model that some of us championed here ten years ago when nobody wanted to hear about it. Could the witnesses give a view on that?

I am watching the time but the other thing I wanted to ask the witnesses about are over-the-shop units. There has been a lot of talk about this and I want to say something to Ms Leech that might be a bit controversial. With regard to a lot of those streetscapes, I can think of towns around the country you can drive through where, if you went about modernising some of them, they would fall down in a pile of dust. They are costly to do. It is very difficult to get fire certificates and reach fire standards because a lot of them are three-storey buildings. The other thing is that you wind up with apartments separated by timber floors with huge maintenance costs. I am suggesting something that has been done in some areas. In some cases, would it not make more sense to hit them with the back bucket of a JCB, load them into a skip, and then put in little streets? A lot of them have long gardens of an acre or more, running down to a walled garden at the back. In some cases, there are good examples where that has been done. It is not to gouge holes in the streetscape, although we may need to stop worrying a bit too much about cosmetics as well, but to put in small streets of housing where you would get in six, eight or ten, and you would get people living not half a mile out the road but in the centre of the village or town, which is what we are supposed to be doing. What are the witnesses views on that?

The last question I have is about staffing in local authorities. I was a member of a local authority for a number of years and one big change I have noticed is that local authorities have gone away from core functions. You can rattle them all off, including water, taxis, etc. They are being diverted into arts and community. What I am being told is the Department will approve, and have approved, legions of people in local authorities in those departments and sections but trying to get somebody approved for housing staff is more difficult. What is the situation with that and what are the witnesses' views on it? Do they feel that local authorities need to get back to core functions and back to basics like water, sewerage, housing, public lights, footpaths, roads, libraries and fire services? These are the things that matter to people. I am not against the arts and community, by the way, in saying that. It is nice but it is one of those things. It is a bit like going out on a Saturday night; you do not necessarily have to but it is nice to go an odd time. The arts are the same. What are the witnesses' views on that?