Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 19 June 2025
Public Accounts Committee
2023 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Report on the Accounts of the Public Services 2023
Chapter 2 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 11 - Exceptional State Funding of the Peter McVerry Trust
Chapter 12 - Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund
Local Government Fund - Account 2023
2:00 am
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
I will come back to the conversation around delays in the approval of social and affordable housing. Listening to Mr. Benson's response, you would think there was no issue with delays. Maybe there is not but statistics show that since August 2024 there has been a growing delay in social and affordable housing stage 1 approvals for local authorities and approved housing bodies. That is a fact. Turnaround times have gone from six to eight weeks, on average, to 12 to 24 weeks. That would suggest there is a problem. This is inevitably delaying the commencement and delivery of much-needed social and affordable homes, as has been referenced by colleagues. Can we cut it down to numbers? Can the Secretary General confirm the number of delayed applications awaiting stage 1 approval at this moment in time?
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