James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

There are a couple of things I have tried. I have a lot of faith in local government.

One of the first things I did in my first few months was to change the parameters around local authorities so that they can now deliver social homes up to the value of €200 million under a single-stage process rather than a four-stage process and trust local authorities and their professionals within local authorities to be able to drive social homes. We also came out with the design manual to make it simpler and more straightforward for local authorities as to what they need to build.

I am trying to find every way I can to facilitate local authorities to deliver social homes. Ultimately, that is how we will help to resolve homelessness crisis and move people away from HAP. Each year, a significant number of people move from HAP into social homes. We have seen a reduction in the number of people in HAP by almost 10,000 over recent years. We want to help local authorities to deliver those social homes. There are different records or rates out there. Some local authorities are doing well in exceeding prior targets on social home delivery through forward funding or turnkeys. I want local authorities to develop their own capacity to deliver their own homes because that protects local authorities in the future through potential economic shocks. They must have their own capacity and not have that reliance on private developers buying and developing outside. Having that resilience in that system is crucial in the context of the immediate necessity to deliver more social homes.