Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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In Fingal. I note we are ramping up. I am not defending the numbers for last year and the year before. We need to continue to ramp up. Fingal has had a big focus on acquisitions in the last number of years. The Deputy is right, actually, that we should be focusing on buying up properties to get them into social housing use quickly. We spent €203 million last year buying more than 1,000 properties that were vacant and were not being used last year and are now in social housing use. As for the idea that we are not acting on that; we do not agree on some things but we do agree that we need to buy up properties that are not being used and may be vacant to get them into social housing use quickly because many families need the State to act with a sense of urgency on social housing provision and it is. That is why we are also driving rapid build. Rapid-build projects have been a real headache for this Department and for local authorities but we are trying to use new technology to get houses built faster. We will look at anything that can do that, within reason, that still represents good quality of build and planning and so on. Rapid build is only part of the solution but it is something that can deliver projects on a timeline that probably would not be possible with conventional projects.

On the repair and leasing scheme, we are not giving people grant aid to do up their houses. What we are saying is that if somebody has a property at the moment that is vacant and is not being used, and if we ask them why they are not renting it, particularly in areas where there is quite high rent, one often gets the answer that the owner would be obliged to put €10,000 or €15,000 into the property to make it ready for the rental market. We would like to be able to tell such people that we will fund that for them and will then take that cost out of their rent for the next ten years. As a result, the cashflow problem a property owner may have to make available that property for a long-term tenancy for social housing purposes can be a win-win for everybody. We get a house into which to put a family for ten years, the local authority or an AHB looks after that tenancy for the landlord and manages the repair that is needed to get the property up to the standard needed to be able to do that. That gets a vacant property into use for social housing. This is not a grant. It is simply the State helping with a cashflow problem that would otherwise result in a vacant property remaining vacant indefinitely into the future. We will see how that works. We have piloted it in Waterford and Carlow - they are particularly keen on it in Waterford and think that it can work - and so we are going to test, particularly in Dublin where there are real pressures, as to whether this can deliver long-term tenancies for social housing tenants.

On affordable mortgages, I would like to do more about local authority mortgages. If one looks at the statistics, a lot of people do not even know they exist. Do not forget that for someone to get a mortgage from a local authority, they must be able to show they have been turned down by at least two banks but there are a lot of people in that category. We are looking at relaunching local authority mortgages. There obviously must be a robust assessment of the ability to pay and credit rating and so on, otherwise the State would be lending irresponsibly and we cannot stand over that.

I would like to see more of a role for local authorities to work with people who may be transitioning from social housing to buying something affordable. There are many properties across Ireland, outside Dublin, that are for sale for €70,000 or €80,000. Not every house for sale costs €200,000 or €300,000. There are many towns and villages that can accommodate people at relatively affordable house prices, particularly if we are bringing many vacant properties back into use. Local authorities could do more here. We need to work with them to make sure that is a financially sound proposition and that it is also legally sound with regard to state aid rules and so on. We are looking at that and we may come back to the committee about it if and when we launch it.