Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Where there are difficulties around transport needs to and from school, and where the hotel might be closer to the school, Leap cards and means are provided to make sure the family can do that. I am not convinced, however, that families' overall needs would be better met in a hotel given the different supports we can give to them around all these things. Unfortunately, there are families which, because of exceptional circumstances, will need a more tailored plan for their individual needs and that will mean they will be in hotels for much longer than I would like them to be.

Questions were asked about an audit of vacant properties in each local authority area. I am currently reviewing the vacant housing strategy. We are making sure we have teams in each local authority who can drill down an appreciation of exactly where these units are and what is the state of their vacancy. This is so that we have informed data driving what we then do in terms of incentives and any other measures that might be brought to bear to make sure that we get them released. That is a part of what we are doing.

The issue of a place finder service for Dún Laoghaire was mentioned. The Dublin Regional Homeless Executive has a place finder service for the use of the new homeless HAP scheme. It is operated by the executive so that should also apply to homeless families and individuals in the Dún Laoghaire area. If the member has examples of people who have not been accommodated through this service then I would like to hear about them because they should be.

With regard to the security of HAP, many measures have been put in place to ensure a more secure situation for people accommodated through this scheme. These include the fact the local authority will make an electronic payment to the landlord, the fact the local authority has flexibility with the size of the payment that might be made and the fact that if there is unfortunately a loss of income on the part of the person living in the accommodation through the HAP scheme, this will not have an impact on the local authority's ability to deliver the payment to the landlord. A number of things are being done to make sure there is security for tenants moving into HAP. While they are no longer able to avail of the housing list, they are able to get access to the transfer list. Some families find themselves moved through the transfer list into other forms of longer term housing.

Cherrywood was mentioned and the changes in the social housing provision there. As the committee knows, when that strategic development zone was first put in place the requirement was for a 20% provision, 10% affordable and 10% social. That was amended in 2015 to 10% social housing because we wanted to kick-start construction activity and reduce the viability gap that was hindering new developments at the time. It was to try to make sure that we could get new developments built. There was also a policy change bringing the focus onto social housing alone.

We want to see if we can increase our ambition in that regard, be it through the use of local authority land or other means such as LIHAF, to bring Government leverage to bear to make sure we have a more ambition than just 10% social housing. We are continuing to consult local authorities, including Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, to see what we can do in respect of bringing new land banks online.

The Deputy asked about the difference in the obligations for providing social and private housing allocations on public and private land and if the mixed tenure policy is the same. We have much more control over State land regarding what we can deliver when we own the land and how we can deliver it. The 10% threshold was always intended to be a minimum and there are ways through new schemes to ensure a greater proportion. One scheme is being rolled at the Irish Glass Bottle site for affordable rent and affordable buy units. Well in excess of 10% social housing will be provided by that land bank. I referred to what we are doing in the context of the mortgage rent to scheme, affordable buy and affordable rent and the interaction in respect of the social housing thresholds.

Senator Boyhan asked a number of questions earlier when I was not present regarding why the George's Place rapid build is taking so long and why there are not more units in the development.