Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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At the request of broadcasting and recording services, Members and visitors in the Public Gallery are requested to ensure that for the duration of the meeting their mobile phones are turned off completely or switched to airplane, safe or flight mode depending on their device. It is not sufficient to just put their phone on silent mode as this will maintain a level of interference with the broadcasting system.

No. 5 on the agenda is an update on Rebuilding Ireland. I welcome to today's meeting the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Murphy, and officials from the Department.

Before we begin, Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I call on the Minister to make his opening statement.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for the opportunity to appear again before the committee, this time to give them an update on the progress made in terms of implementation of Rebuilding Ireland in the first quarter of this year. I am joined this afternoon by Mr. John McCarthy, the Secretary General of the Department, and assistant secretaries Ms Mary Hurley and Mr. David Walsh.

To begin with our most pressing concern and in regard homelessness, the first quarter of this year saw Storm Emma hit our country. Today, I would like to take the opportunity to once again acknowledge the efforts by all in local authorities, non-governmental organisations, NGOs, emergency services and my own Department in keeping our rough sleepers safe and warm during that extreme weather event.

Since Storm Emma, we have put an additional 60 emergency beds in place and we have seen significant progress with the number of rough sleepers on our streets reducing by more than 40% in April. While this is welcome, more needs to be done and we will further tackle this issue through the accelerated roll-out of Housing First programmes and by continuing to support the most vulnerable in our society. A director of Housing First was appointed in February and is currently advancing a national Housing First implementation plan, which I expect to receive next month. At the end of the first quarter of this year, 224 new Housing First tenancies had been put in place, with 106 of these being put in place during 2017 alone.

On the publication of the January homeless figures, I stated that I had asked the Dublin Region Homeless Executive to investigate increasing numbers with a view to preparing a detailed report and recommendations. This report is almost finished. In the course of this work and work on the preparation of homeless figures for March, significant mis-categorisations were discovered, which have overstated the total number of people in emergency accommodation in the State today. A number of local authorities have erroneously categorised individuals and families living in local authority owned or leased housing stock, including in some instances people renting in the private sector but in receipt of social housing supports, as being in emergency accommodation.

To date, at least 600 individuals have been identified as having been categorised as living in emergency accommodation when they are not. Some, but not all, of these individuals have been removed from the total numbers, with the agreement of local authorities. Work continues with local authorities to gauge the total extent of the issue.

It is quite clear that the current reporting model needs to be reformed as such errors undermine our ability to properly understand the extent and nature of the problem, as well as inform policy decisions around solutions. Once I receive the report from the Dublin Region Homeless Executive and also the report due from the Homelessness Inter-Agency Group I established last September, I will review them and respond with policy measures and further solutions, as appropriate. As I have indicated already, I will also engage with this committee in regard to both those reports.

Building on the €1.4 billion provided for investment in housing last year, this year’s ambitious programme of delivery will be supported by funding of €1.9 billion, an increase of over 35% on 2017.

In January, we held the second Housing Summit with local authority chief executives where we agreed a commitment to drive greater transparency and accountability at individual local authority level on the delivery of the targets under Rebuilding Ireland. On foot of a detailed process of engagement since then between my Department and individual local authorities, I have now advised all 31 authorities of their social housing targets for 2018 and also for the multi-annual period to 2021.

In setting local authority targets for 2018, I have made very clear that these are minimum targets and that where additional capacity to deliver arises, we will work in partnership with local authorities to drive that accelerated delivery. I have shared these targets with the committee for their information and they are publicly available on my Department’s website.

Looking at social housing delivery overall in 2018, it is expected that more than 25,000 additional households will have their housing need met. This includes just under 8,000 homes to be built, acquired or leased by local authorities and approved housing bodies and in excess of 17,000 additional flexible housing solutions through the housing assistance payment and rental accommodation schemes.

I am planning to convene a third housing summit next month and I will be pressing local authority chief executives to ensure they keep their focus on delivering their targets and accelerating their programmes.

When we look at the overall supply of housing, there are very encouraging signs that home building is recovering. All supply indicators are showing positive trends but all the indicators are pointing very positively in the right direction. In terms of planning permissions, 20,800 were approved in 2017, which was an increase of 27% on 2016; in terms of commencement notices, 18,100 new houses were notified in the 12 months to March of this year, an increase of 27% year-on-year; and the Central Statistics Office, CSO, Quarterly National Accounts show residential investment up 33% in 2017.

An Bord Pleanála’s fast-track planning system has delivered some substantial new planning permissions and has bedded in very well with both developers and local authorities. To date, of the 19 applications received, there have been 15 decisions made, with 12 approved, which will deliver a combined 1,600 houses, 1,300 apartments and 3,600 student beds.

Current applications, which will be decided in the next two months alone, involve a further 600 houses, 250 apartments and 480 student beds. Further consultations and applications continue to be lodged on a weekly basis.

As supply is increasing, we must ensure that the new homes are accessible and affordable to rent and to buy. The new affordable housing measures I signalled earlier this year are being actioned. Specifically, I will commence the legislation for affordable housing purchase in the coming days and I will make regulations shortly thereafter; an announcement on a major cost rental project to be advanced in Dublin city is forthcoming; and I am expecting to issue further calls for proposals, with €75 million of Exchequer funding available, for enabling infrastructure, both off-site access and on-site services, to facilitate further housing delivery, with a particular focus on our cities where the affordability challenge is greatest.

Building on the extensive analysis of their housing land bank by each local authority that informed their social housing targets out to 2021, I will also be concluding my assessment of the affordable housing yield from local authority lands and publishing delivery targets in the coming weeks.

The new Rebuilding Ireland home loan was launched in February. It is another important tool in terms of facilitating credit worthy first-time buyers to access sustainable mortgage lending to purchase new or second-hand properties in suitable price ranges. The low rate of fixed interest associated with the new loan provides first-time buyers with access to mortgage finance that they may not otherwise have been able to afford at a higher interest rate. As one would expect, there has been a lot of interest in the loan. To date, the Housing Agency has had a total of 660 valid applications referred to it by local authorities for credit assessment. Of these, as many as 479 have been assessed and 46% of those have been recommended for approval. As with previous loans, it is a matter for the relevant local authority credit committee to ultimately determine whether a loan application is approved, having regard to the agency's recommendation and any other relevant factors and considerations.

As the committee will be aware, a significant policy shift towards securing more compact and sustainable urban and rural development was signalled in the national planning framework. A key element of implementation will involve the establishment of a national regeneration and development agency to assist in ensuring a more effective approach to strategic land management, particularly in terms of publicly owned land.

Detailed arrangements on the functions, powers and mechanisms for the establishment of the agency are being developed by my Department, in conjunction with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. New apartment guidelines have also been introduced that will provide more flexibility to expand apartment construction, including facilitating new models like build-to-rent and shared accommodation.

Overall implementation of the national planning framework will be supported by an investment of €2 billion for urban regeneration and development purposes, focusing on cities and towns with populations in excess of 10,000. The new urban regeneration and development fund, which will be launched at the end of June, will be a competitive bid-based fund that operates in line with specified criteria. The fund aims to achieve more sustainable growth in Ireland's five cities, regional drivers and other larger urban centres.

In terms of the rental sector, I secured Government approval on 17 April to quickly progress the drafting of a new Bill to amend the Residential Tenancies Act. The Bill proposes to make it an offence for landlords to implement rent increases that contravene the law around rent limits, which is 4% per annum, in rent pressure zones, RPZs, and to provide powers to the Residential Tenancies Board to investigate and prosecute landlords who implement such increases, without the need for a complaint to be made by the tenant. The Bill also provides for much longer notice periods for tenants before they have to move out of their rented accommodation, which adds a greater degree of security and certainty for renters.

In terms of the Residential Tenancies Board's latest quarterly rent index for Quarter 4 of 2017, there were signs of some moderation in average rental price growth at a national level as well as in Dublin. Nationally, private rents rose by 6.4% across the country compared with the same 12-month period to Quarter 4 of 2016. This compares with 8% year-on-year growth recorded to Quarter 3 of 2017. In Dublin, over the same period, rents increased by 5.2% compared with 8% year-on-year growth. Notwithstanding these encouraging signs, the fact that rents are still rising means that we must continue to do all that we can to increase supply of rental accommodation and provide greater security and certainty for both tenants and landlords. The proposed new powers for the RTB are a crucial first step in expanding its overall role and function as part of a multi-annual change management programme to proactively enforce tenancy law, and assume more the role of a regulator within the rental sector.

We are continuing to work proactively to reduce the number of vacant homes throughout the country, identifying opportunities and procedures for their reuse. Local authorities have either completed, or are close to completing, vacant home action plans and designated vacant home officers have been appointed. These actions will aid the identification of the scale of vacancy in individual local authority areas. In addition, we are continuing to work with local authorities in implementing new initiatives such as the repair and lease scheme and the buy and renew scheme.

The Rebuilding Ireland plan is working and progress has been made across the country as families and individuals move into their new homes. The updated position on all of the actions, under the 5 pillars of the plan, is set out in the Quarter 1 2018 update tabular statement that has been circulated to members and uploaded on to my Department's website. The statement provides a useful summary of activity, status and progress.

While much has been achieved, I know only too well that more is needed. My Department and I remain firmly focused on that delivery agenda and are working with our wide range of partners, including the local authorities and the approved housing bodies. Again, I thank the committee for the invitation to attend and I am happy to respond to any questions that members may have.

Yesterday evening, during a debate in the Dáil on Private Members' business tabled by Fianna Fáil, I interrupted Deputy Darragh O'Brien on a number occasions as he made his closing remarks. He has every right to make a statement without me interrupting him and I apologise for the interruptions.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I wish to inform the Minister that before he came into the room committee members agreed, in private session at the start of the meeting, that they would have five minutes each in which to ask him questions and, where possible, will reference the appropriate page and heading, and the Minister will have five minutes to respond to each member. We made such an arrangement to enable us to discuss all five pillars. The first round of questions will be on pillars 1 and 2 and Senator Boyhan will be first to speak.

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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I welcome the Minister and I shall try to be as brief as I can with just five minutes.

Since last we met, Minister, the biggest controversy about the Rebuilding Ireland plan is not the delivery of the houses but the manner in which the statistics have been validated and verified. The Minister, members of this committee and policymakers need to have confidence in the statistics in order to stand over them. Clearly, there is a greater need for accuracy, clarity and consistency in terms of the reporting of all housing statistics be they from the approved housing bodies or whoever else.. I have no difficulty with them all being social housing units but let us break down the figures. We need to have an understanding and reach agreement because, quite frankly, there has been a lot of misunderstanding. There has also been a lot of criticism about journalists and reporters in terms of these reports. I do not know what the issue is but I do know that we need to be consistent across the board.

I wish to acknowledge that the officials in the Department have done a very good job even though the task has been difficult. Let me give an example. The Minister has asked chief executive officers to circulate this matter to their councillors. However, councillors have contacted me to say that they did not receive the circular. I took the liberty of contacting the councillors and I received a range of replies. I wish to note that the date of the letter is 18 April and that the date and the Minister's signature can be found on the back of the letter. I can supply the replies that I received to the Minister later. A number of councillors have contacted me and I am happy to make their emails available to him. They informed me that the statistics are all rubbish and untrue and, clearly, the figures were not the ones that their chief executive told them. In response, I said that there must be a misunderstanding or difficulty. I can assure the Minister that the councillors were so annoyed with the statistics that they decided to contact me. We have the housing assistance payment, HAP, the rental assistance scheme, RAS, various social housing schemes, and legislation, and there is a lot of confusion. I do not suggest that anybody has told lies but we need to be confident enough to be able to stand over the figures. In general, we need the statistics to be validated, verified and to have integrity. There must also be consistency in terms of the approach adopted by all of the 31 local authorities, the Department and in how the Minister answers questions in the Dáil, Seanad and anywhere else. All of that would give us a bit of comfort. Now that we know what the problem is we can strategically set out to do something about the matter.

Pillar 1 contains 38 actions. I note that there has been no change in the status of any of the sections from the last time the Minister reported to us. I refer to the system before us. The Minister knows what is in the circular. No. 1.23 reads: "A circular has issued to all LAs." It might be no harm if he considered the matter again.

I wish to acknowledge the amazing progress that has been made in reducing the number of rough sleepers on our streets and assisting them, particularly during Storm Emma. There has been great collaboration between the Department, the McVerry Trust and Focus Ireland. All of that Trojan work flushed out people that we did not know anything about, which is good. Many of them are now in the system.

I have a big problem with the local authority housing targets set by the Minister. I personally believe that the targets are not ambitious enough and lack imagination, and councillors around the country share my view. The Minister seems to be happy with the targets but the people involved in the housing sector are not. I ask him to explain the rationale behind his targets. I detect that he is very supportive of the councils and their staff, which I admire. I support them too but I want them stretched and I want them to deliver on those houses. I ask him to talk about the matter.

I want to discuss Pillar 2 and the long delay in establishing a regulator for the approved housing bodies, AHBs. Why the delay? Is it due to a lack of legislation or whatever? I ask the Minister to touch base on this important matter.

Social housing is a big issue but I have chosen just two issues to discuss with the Minister. There is a proposal for the site at Shanganagh Castle owned by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. Strangely, the county council is unaware of the proposal. Nobody seems to know what is happening with the site. Can the Minister tell me what is happening today? Is his Department funding the proposal?

The Dundrum Central Mental Hospital site comprises 36 acres. We are in the business of forward planning and the site offers one of the greatest development opportunities in south County Dublin. Today, the National Economic & Social Council, NESC, published a report on State buildings and lands and I ask the Minister to comment on its findings. In order for us to get our act together we need to forward plan. I wish to remind everyone that the buildings will become vacant in less than two years so a new arrangement must be made for this major State asset. We must decide how the site can be released thus enabling somebody to develop a master plan, and the site will require a master plan because it is too large for a Part 8 development. I urge the Minister to get that project working and ticking over so that by the time the buildings become vacant in two years time, a master plan will have been approved and implemented or a Government decision made. The Government may decide not to utilise all of the site. These are just some of the points that I wanted to share with the Minister.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senator for his questions. The first issue he raised related to publication of data, verification and validation. I find it hugely frustrating when I see different numbers reported as fact in different places and I have tried to bring a greater coherency to the different types of numbers we produce and publish but the difficulty is there are different ways of counting. We can count based on where the money comes from, whether it is from a CALF or a CAS, or delivery streams such as a local authority, AHB or Part V build. Separately, the construction quarterly reports do not count Part V, for example. As reports are published at different times in the year, people then try to get an overall view of what is happening but that can lead to confusion as different numbers are reported. It is frustrating when that happens. There is integrity in the numbers we publish. When we publish reports, we publish the same set of numbers. However, last year, I took voids out of the number in the table I have provided to the committee. This speaks to the issue. I have a number of different tables in front of me showing the way the numbers are reported to me. We took voids out of the numbers in one table to be clear on exactly what we were doing in the voids programme. People then take those numbers and use them differently because we have separated the voids out.

We will publish numbers in a consistent way and we will try to be as clear as we can on what is being achieved through different delivery streams. Not everyone will want to reflect what is happening in the same way and people can be confused about some of the numbers and datasets. Currently, we are examining whether there is a better and more intelligible way of publishing and presenting the numbers and how regularly we should do so in order that people can see what is happening and the progress that is being made. It is not about transparency because we are transparent with the numbers. One of the intentions behind giving the committee the target number for each local authority this year and updating it quarterly is that members can be clear about what is happening in their own local authorities. I recognise the issue the Senator is raising and we are examining it but there is no question about the integrity or validity of the numbers. There is perhaps a question about how they are presented and communicated.

While some of the colours might not have changed in the table that was updated and presented to the committee, the text changed to reflect progress that has been made. Many of the programmes are ongoing as they run for five years or were not due for completion in the first quarter of this year. That is the reason some colours have not changed but the text has changed in the tabular update provided to the committee.

We have discussed Storm Emma a great deal. It occurred during the first quarter. I was on the front line and witnessed the huge effort that each local authority put in working with the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, DRHE, and, in particular, the McVerry Trust. I single them out because they opened St. Catherine's Foyer and did a huge volume of work. The storm drew out homeless people who were not in the system. It is good that they are now in the system and we will try to find them sustainable pathways out of homelessness.

The local authority targets we have set are consistent with the Rebuilding Ireland targets. We have €6 billion for 50,000 units coming out of the social housing stock. We are, in particular, talking about the build component for local authorities and housing bodies. They are minimum targets and, therefore, if we can get ahead of them, we will do so. It will be my responsibility to secure the funding to do that. We have to recognise, though, that while the numbers might seem small for some local authorities, they are a significant increase on what was delivered in previous years because they are not up to speed to get all the different machinery properly functioning to build at the ambitious scale we need. At the same time, we want them to deliver through other initiatives such as the vacant homes and repair and lease schemes. As I stated in the Dáil yesterday, we have provided additional resources. More than 700 new staff for housing roles have been approved by my Department since 2015. I said at the housing summit earlier this year that if local authorities want more staff to manage projects, they can book them to my Department. That is not a problem and I want them to do that. This morning, my officials met representatives of the County and City Management Association, CCMA, to reinforce that point and to discuss additional resources. We will discuss this again at the next housing summit in June.

Voluntary regulation is in place for approved housing bodies, AHBs. We have been paving the way through voluntary regulation under the remit of the Housing Agency for statutory regulation to be introduced. The legislation is almost complete and it is a priority on the A list. I have monitored the drafting of the Bill closely and it is almost complete. I will then introduce it in the Dáil and, hopefully, it will move through the House quickly given we are all familiar with what needs to be done regarding regulation.

With regard to the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, the NESC report was before Cabinet on Tuesday. If members have not read it, I encourage them to do so. It is a detailed report, which makes good recommendations that we hope to adopt and pursue under Project Ireland 2040. The Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum is a key site for strategic development that needs at the very least to be guided by the State. I will do what I can to examine it and other sites to see what role they can play bearing in mind the need for forward planning and the need to decant patients from the site to other locations and other issues that might arise as someone moves to secure that land. However, tying it to the NESC report, I recognise that when we consider all the resources and funding that are being put in place and the results that they will achieve, unless we do something more fundamental, we will repeat the mistakes of the past.

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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We have time on our side now.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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We do.

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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The patients will be gone in less than two years.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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That is why it is a priority in my Department.

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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The Minister needs to get started.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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That is why we highlighted the site in Project Ireland 2040 and we are moving forward on that.

The capital appraisal for 540 units on the Shanganagh site has been received and the Department is working with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council on the appraisal. The breakdown is 200 social housing units and 340 affordable housing units, which will cost between €140 million and €150 million. We are examining the appraisal with the local authority and we must go through it robustly to make sure it adds up and to make sure we are not left in a difficult position from a financial point of view or from any other point of view. However, we want to progress this site. It is important for the people in the area, the local authority and the Department.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister and I appreciate his opening remarks. I will stick to questions on the figures. We had a debate yesterday evening on housing and we will have many other opportunities to debate the issues. My first question relates to the reporting of homelessness data. The Minister should forget about whether we agree with the baseline figures. Is he committed to monthly reporting of this data? There were reports that the Department, and not him necessarily, wanted to change to quarterly reporting. I am concerned about that and I would like to give him the opportunity to tell the committee that he is committed to monthly reporting, which is a fundamental issue. I wrote to him in this regard on 30 April.

I acknowledge the Minister said the reporting of homelessness figures is being examined but I hope the alleged overstatement of the figures by between 600 and 800 over a series of months will be clarified. We have had no clarity and we are all left to dispute them. The public are disputing them and my worry is this is a diversion from the core issue. Whether it is more than 10,000 people or fewer than 10,000, it is the people themselves who matter. The discussion has moved on to whether we can trust the figures. That needs to be cleared up quickly. If inaccuracies are found, will the Department commit to publishing the verified figures to confirm the numbers removed from the list in March? Will that format be applied retrospectively to previous months? We need a baseline that we agree and that we can work from. We cannot deal with a problem if we do not know how big it is. Housing is a quantifiable issue. Homelessness, supply, affordability and resources are quantifiable. The Minister's predecessor was at pains to tell us, as he has since, that money is no object in respect of the Government's response, which is good. What caused the purported mistake in categorisation? How have the numbers been recategorised? How have the 600 to 800 units been categorised?

The national homelessness consultative committee was set up in April 2007 as a forum for dialogue between the Department and non-governmental organisations, NGOs, on policies to address homelessness.

That is crucial and it has been up and running since 2007. That group met once in 2017 and, as far as I am aware, not once in 2018. It also met once in 2016. We could really use it much better and I have spent much time in the past number of weeks meeting representatives of NGOs and bodies within that. It is useful and we need to speak with the people on the ground. I know the Minister is doing that but I get a sense from time to time that there seems to be an over-centralisation of control within the Customs House and the Department. We need to reach out and the committee was set up to be useful. I have heard from people involved with it and they might be able to get to the bottom of the discrepancies in the numbers.

In the short couple of minutes left on this topic I will ask about delivery. I will not go through the figures again. The Minister indicated 8,000 will be built this year but that remains to be seen. A big part of the Rebuilding Ireland plan was the housing delivery office. It is something we debated with last night's motion and the Minister alluded to an agency in his opening statement and also the establishment of an affordable housing scheme. Perhaps the discussion last night was of some use. Is the office fully effective and how many staff does it have? My understanding is there were three but are there more or fewer now? If this is to be a main driver in housing delivery, what is the optimum level? Where does the Minister see the unit going?

I promised to stay within the five minutes and I am timing myself. Is the stage four process relating to procurement and construction really necessary? It is a period of 59 weeks so can we not do something there? It is within our control when we build on our land. I have stated again and again on behalf of my party that we are happy to see the utilisation of public land and ownership for public and affordable housing. It is paramount. We have the inventory and we know where is the land. We can get on and build on it. My final questions relate to a couple of examples in this regard. They include Oscar Traynor Road, O'Devaney Gardens and the Glass Bottle site. These are three flagship projects in Dublin that can show people that something is happening. We need them to show shovels in the ground. The figures do not mean much to people if they cannot see activity on the ground. Will the Minister provide an update on when those projects are expected to commence? Are we waiting for the establishment of the proposed Government affordable housing scheme before we can commence?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for the questions and I will try to answer them as best I can. No decision has been made on the homeless reporting. To be frank, I have not yet received the reports. There are two to be received, with one from the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive, DRHE, which I instigated in January, and one from the inter-agency group I set up in September after the first housing summit. Currently we work with monthly reporting and one of the problems is "miscategorisation". I will come to the second question in a moment. We are not quite sure how long this has been happening, when it first presented itself or the scale but it has meant the numbers have not necessarily been correct from month to month. It is also very resource-intensive for people working on the front line who are doing this type of reporting. I am not sure what it is telling us other than that numbers are increasing. I had found it difficult to get behind numbers. When we saw the increase in January I asked the DRHE to compile the report as I had not learned anything from December to January in terms of understanding trends. We needed a bigger picture to understand those trends. No decision has been made but I am awaiting those two reports. We have had a problem with monthly reporting and we have been debating it for the past month anyway since the miscategorisation was announced.

The Deputy had a second question relating to categorisation. He is not wrong in saying the debate on it, in some aspects, is a bit of a diversion from the real issue. I have said before that whether the number is 10,000 or 9,600, we have a crisis of homelessness. We know that. It is about what policy tools need to be changed, introduced or be driven harder in order to find sustainable solutions for each of those affected people and families. The work is ongoing on miscategorisation and we are trying to find out exactly where it has occurred. To date we know it has occurred in five local authorities and there is a possibility that it has happened in a sixth. We want to know when it occurred. It happened in February in one local authority and it was brought to our attention that this happened because there was a specific spike in one area. We want to know why it occurred. I said publicly that we think from initial conversations that it is about section 10 funding. At the beginning of the year at the first housing summit I indicated to local authorities that people should be prevented from going into emergency accommodation and that they should be creative if necessary. We think section 10 funding has been used, which is for emergency accommodation, and in some cases it was used to keep people in their private rental accommodation or put them into local authority owned or leased homes where they have stayed. They have gone nowhere near emergency accommodation but we think that is why they were counted like this. It is the piece of work happening currently.

When I have the two reports I must bring them to Cabinet first but I will then come hear to speak about them and their recommendations. I want to speak with the full facts. I did not have the full facts but I had to say what I did. I could not produce the March numbers and not tell the public what we discovered. I recognise that because we did not have the full facts, we now have questions we cannot yet answer. I want to have the full facts before having a full and thorough discussion on that and how to move forward together. This is not a political matter for anybody in this room but it is about helping. We can discuss the politics of how to deliver house building and whether we should use approved housing bodies, lease agreements or the percentage of houses that should come under Part V. These are the kinds of political questions we debate among each other before coming to policy decisions. When it comes to the crisis we have of people in emergency accommodation and people sleeping rough, we need to work together to get solutions. I know we are all on the same page in that regard. The Deputy is right to say we need to know the numbers as well. As we get the reports and figure out the problem, we will come with more detail. Not as many as 600 were taken from the March figures but it was not far off that number. The initial estimates are around 800 and it has not changed from the latest report from my officials.

Our engagement with non-governmental organisations in the voluntary sector is constant as they are partners organisations that we fund through taxpayers' money. I consult with those bodies on a regular basis. I will do that sometimes in a formal capacity as the head of a housing summit or it might be done informally, as I would meet the different chairs and chief executives, as well as some of the staff, from time to time. The inter-agency report is about co-ordinating Government resources and they are part of that despite being non-governmental organisations. There has been constant consultation. Recently we had a sit-down with the Taoiseach and the chief executives of the main bodies. It is constant.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I do not mean to interrupt but the national homelessness consultative committee is there and it is a structure within the Department. Is there a reason we are not using it as a structure? Is it because of all the other meetings that are happening? We should use it and the feedback I have had from groups is that they found it useful because it was a permanent structure. Is there a change in tack in that regard?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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One of my structured engagements was to meet another umbrella group of NGOs that represents every different group that helps people in emergency accommodation with the needs they have. We met as a group and there might have been 30 of us in the room. We spoke about the different problems being faced and potential solutions. It was a very good engagement but nobody has raised it with me directly about re-establishing or continuing the forum. I will take a look at it. I am very happy with the Department's constant engagement with the voluntary and NGO sector. We are not missing any gaps in recommendations or problems that might occur in the system.

There is a repurposed housing delivery unit. It spent the past couple of months going to each local authority with money, targets and construction reports to do a deep dive into what was planned for delivery, where it was to be delivered and the different ancillary questions. I asked the Minister of State, Deputy English, to drive the office and be politically responsible for it for me and ensure it could do its work. There are three people in the office and we will increase its resources. The person heading the office has done a fantastic job and that is why we have been able to bring about transparency to each authority and I hope this will drive greater accountability as well.

Much work was done to shorten the approval process to 59 weeks. Putting in every element of every stage, it seems like bureaucracy has gone mad, but this is very important, given the levels of funding we are talking about and some of the mistakes made in the past by local authorities.

I have responsibility for taxpayers' money. I am accountable to this committee and the Oireachtas. The Secretary General is accountable to the Committee of Public Accounts. I am, of course, accountable to the Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform regarding how that money is spent. We must make sure we have robust approval processes in place. At the same time, there should be no delay in that process, which is why the delivery unit is there. Where there is a delay, the delivery unit is there to untie that knot where it arises. I have been very open in communicating with every Member of the Oireachtas, any councillor, any Senator and any Deputy who wanted infomation. We have a mixed picture when we look at our local authorities and what they are doing around house building. Some of them have picked this back up very quickly while some are coming late to the game. The figures tell us that. Some local authorities need help. Some local authorities are interpreting policy in the incorrect way but when a Deputy brings that to my attention, we can get on to it immediately. A Deputy might come to me and say "well, we've been told by the local authority that they can't do staged payments". We can say that of course it can do staged payments and we then help them arrange that. We can untie these knots together using feedback from each constituency but also using the delivery unit to get on top of that. The 59 weeks is as much as we can shorten that in terms of the approval process.

The Deputy is right about activity. Some sites have been about to be built upon for far too long. People then start to question whether this is ever going to happen. I have had the privilege of being at a number of sites relating to regeneration such as Dolphin House and Park, recent ones where building is happening when for years, it was thought that it would not happen. It is good to see that but there is a lot more we need to do on those three sites in particular. We are not waiting on the affordable purchase scheme to be clarified with local authorities for procurement and building to happen. That needs to happen first before any of these homes can be tenanted. I did give the outlines of the affordable purchase scheme in January. If not this week, it will be early next week when I sign the commencement order and then we will have regulations. It will then be up to local authorities. We will give them some flexibility regarding how they manage things around the affordable purchase scheme. I also mentioned something around the €75 million and putting that out on the serviced sites fund. I will do that very shortly but I can come back to that. I am conscious of time.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The first thing I will say is that accuracy of data is very important. While Deputy O'Brien is right in saying that the people behind the numbers are more important, if we are not counting accurately, we do not know if things are getting better or worse and we do not know if the policies that have been put in place are the right or wrong ones. I do believe that the accuracy of the monthly homelessness reports is very important. I disagree with the Minister. I think those reports provide us with a huge amount of information. We are one of two EU member states that provide monthly reporting and are the envy of almost every other EU member state because we have access to that data.

I am trying to understand the rationale for the decision to remove a certain number of adults and children from the March figures. My questions in the first instance concern that. Obviously, we will discuss the broader piece about the two reports when the Minister comes before the committee but I presume he is able to give us information underpinning the decision to take adults and children out of the March numbers. Can the Minister tell us the exact number of households - adults and children - that were removed from the March figures on the grounds of alleged mis-categorisation?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Does the Deputy want to give me a list of questions?

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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No, we will go through them one by one.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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It will be ten minutes back and forth whatever way the Deputy and the Minister want to work it.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That is fine.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I will give as much information as I can bearing in mind that I do not want to cause any unintentional confusion around this. When the categorisation was brought to my attention, we were under pressure to publish the March numbers and I did not want to fall away from the monthly reporting with which we had been proceeding. The decision I made was to put out the numbers and also to be upfront about the mis-categorisation knowing that I did not know the total amount, that there was still more information to come and that a piece of work was ongoing. That is not a position I wanted to be in but I felt I had to be honest because the Deputy is right about-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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My question is-----

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I will come to that question right now because the Deputy asked me about the accuracy of data.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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For the sake of clarity, I am just looking for the Minister to provide that information.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy is right regarding the accuracy of data and that is why I did that because I want accurate numbers as well. Whenever we debate, we always debate numbers and data and that is the space I like to be in because it, rather than anecdotes, can help drive better policy. The number removed from the March numbers is 578 comprising 247 adults and 331 dependants. I think I might have given that figure to the Deputy in a parliamentary question last week. That should align with that number. That was the number removed from the March figures.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Can the Minister tell us the local authorities from which they were removed?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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They were removed from five local authorities: Kerry, Limerick, Waterford, Louth and the Dublin region.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Of those people who were removed, can the Minister tell us how many of those households had tenancies at the time of the removal? This involves tenancies with a local authority or a private landlord.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I do not have that information. What I can tell the Deputy is that from memory, the people removed from Dublin and Louth were in private rental accommodation while the people from the other three local authorities were in local authority-owned or leased accommodation.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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So many of the families who were removed did not have tenancy agreements either with the local authority or approved housing body. They might have been in stock that was owned or leased by the local authority but they did not have tenancies. Can the Minister tell us how the circumstances of the households that were removed are any different from those of families currently residing in Tallaght Cross, 60 units owned by South Dublin County Council where people are in self-contained units with a key to a door on a temporary emergency accommodation basis? What is the difference?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Tallaght Cross has not yet been addressed by the local authority - the Dublin Region Homeless Executive. That is something we still have to look at in terms of categorisation. What we are looking at here is people who are not in emergency accommodation.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The question is what is the difference between the people who have been removed and those in Tallaght Cross because it seems they are similar.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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We have not yet looked at Tallaght Cross so I cannot tell the Deputy about a difference but what I can tell him is that-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister does not know the difference.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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What I can tell the Deputy is that we have not yet looked at Tallaght Cross. What I can tell him is that when we talk about people - because the Deputy is talking about people with or without tenancies - we have people in private rental accommodation paying rent who were at risk of losing that accommodation, who got support from the local authority and who were then counted as being in emergency accommodation when they never actually left their homes.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I will come to that in a second.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Does the Deputy accept-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I will come to that in a second. A lot of work went into the underlying definition of homelessness that is used in the publication of these figures. It involved the National Homeless Consultative Committee and the data subcommittee of that in 2013 and 2014. A very clear definition of homelessness was agreed at that time underpinning the figures that have been presented since. The figures have not deviated in my view or the view of many people involved in that. This is presented as a homeless report. What is the Minister's understanding of the definition of homelessness that underpins this monthly report?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The homeless report gives the number of people who are in emergency accommodation. That is what it does. Regarding the definition of homelessness, it is for each local authority to decide if a person who comes to it is homeless or not and it does that based on the guidelines that are there but we are quite clear on what emergency accommodation is.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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What is emergency accommodation in the Minister's view?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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In the first instance, we are talking about people in hotels and B&Bs. We are talking about people in hostels either for one night or even in a temporary situation for six months. That is emergency accommodation. It is very different from local authority-owned stock and private rental sector stock.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Let me share some information with the committee. I have received emails from five local authorities. Since the Minister would not put this information into the public domain over the past number of weeks, I made it my business to contact them directly. Dublin City Council told me that 26 families were removed. None of those people had leases. They were in stock leased by the local authority in section 10-funded temporary accommodation arrangements so they are all homeless. Waterford city and county councils told me that seven families were removed who were in local authority stock but the local authorities said in writing this stock did not meet their needs and, in the view of the local authorities, was temporary accommodation while they were trying to move them somewhere else. Meath County Council told me about an unusual arrangement where the notice to quit of families had expired and they would have been on the streets. The local authority contacted landlords in 15 cases pleading with them to leave the families in those properties with no tenancy to be funded with section 10 emergency funding until they got housed elsewhere. Limerick-----

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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On a point of information, I am not aware that any figures have been re-categorised in-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Limerick. These are all-----

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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These are all re-categorisations. This is the problem.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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All of these-----

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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For the record, I do not have any of this correspondence either so the Deputy might share it with the committee members afterwards

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Absolutely. All of this has been in the public domain over the past week. Limerick involved 24 families in Focus Ireland section 10-funded temporary accommodation with no tenancies. There is a long-term plan over four years to potentially turn those into real tenancies following refurbishment but in the view of Focus Ireland, that is emergency temporary accommodation. The case of Louth County Council is interesting.

Some 100 families were removed. Some 86 of those were in temporary arrangements in properties leased by the local authority from the private rental sector, but they were families that the local authority was trying to house elsewhere. Another 22 were transitioning to housing assistance payment, HAP, but at the time of the figures they did not have HAP tenancies and were being funded through section 10. Yes, I absolutely accept that 20 of those 100 families were in HAP tenancies. They were getting a top-up from section 10 funding, but they had HAP tenancies. On the basis of the figures from those five local authorities, 172 families were removed and only 20 had tenancies. The reason this is important is that the definition of homelessness underpinning those reports has been crystal clear to everybody involved for years. It excludes people who have a tenancy with a local authority, an approved housing body or the private rental sector. Anybody else who is in a temporary arrangement funded by section 10 does not have a tenancy and is homeless.

The Minister is correct. We have had a situation over the last two years where families are spending a longer period in emergency accommodation than was traditionally the case. People used to stay night to night, for three months or for six months. However, because the homelessness crisis has become so acute, families are now spending up to two years in these temporary transitional arrangements, without tenancies, and with the local authority or approved housing body intending to move them on.

I seem to have more information than the Minister, which is astounding because I just contacted the local authorities. On the basis of the information that I have got, 152 households of the 172 identified were homeless at the time they were removed, did not have tenancies and were in temporary section 10-funded emergency accommodation, and were removed with the Minister's approval. Kildare County Council tells us via email that the Department asked it to remove households and it refused - this is in black and white, and I will share it with everybody - on the grounds that the accommodation that these people lived in was temporary and did not meet their needs.

Perhaps I am seeing a Minister who does not understand the difference between a tenancy and a temporary emergency accommodation arrangement. If he does not understand that fundamental difference, then my opinion is that he is not competent to hold the job he is in because it is such a basic definition in homeless services. Alternatively, he does understand the difference. He knows very well the difference between a tenancy and a temporary licence agreement, but he is still allowing hundreds of families to be removed from the figures. If that is the case, then I have to say, and it gives me no pleasure to say this, he is not fit to hold the office he holds. The Minister absolutely cannot remove families from homeless figures when they are in emergency accommodation without tenancies. I urge the Minister to go and meet the experts. He should meet Mr. Eoin O'Sullivan from Trinity College Dublin who helped to design this system, and the people from the National Homelessness Consultative Committee-----

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy is over time, and I have to let the Minister answer these points.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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This is my final point. I call on the Minister to review this. He should put those families that are without tenancies back into the figures, and include in the figures other people who are homeless. For example, I refer to those in non-section-10 funded hostels here in Dublin. More than 100 of them are ignored. Tusla-funded domestic violence step-down and emergency accommodation houses homeless women and children whom the Minister ignores. Rough sleepers should also be included in this count, along with those 500 adults and children stuck in direct provision who should not be there but are using it as emergency accommodation. If the Minister thinks he can get away by coming to the committee and accusing local authorities of erroneously categorising when it is he who is making the error, he is gravely mistaken.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I do not think the Minister did suggest that, but I have to give him the appropriate time to respond.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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They are direct quotes from his press release on the day of the figures. Direct quotes.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I am not ignoring anyone, and the charges that the Deputy levels against me are very serious. He accepts the miscategorisation. He has accepted that this has happened. I am the person responsible for getting to the bottom of this. Deputy Ó Broin does not have the complete information, and that is the dangerous thing about what he is doing. There are formal reporting structures between local authorities and the Department. Right now, we are undergoing a formal process by which we are going to get a complete picture. When we have a complete picture, we can then discuss and debate it.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Is it not astounding-----

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy must allow the Minister to proceed without interruption as he did not interrupt the Deputy.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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It takes time to collate the information correctly. I want the correct information. The Deputy's approach has been to create greater confusion around what has happened here by going out and sourcing piecemeal bits of information. The Deputy mentioned two local authorities that were not involved in the recategorisation process.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That is not what the figures are telling us in writing.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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They were not. This is the thing; there is a formal reporting structure to me. I can get a full and detailed report with all the information that we need to get a proper understanding of what has happened here, and then decide on the best way to move forward, based on recommendations. That is what we are trying to do. It is very important for the integrity of all involved, the integrity of the relationship between the Department and this committee, the integrity of the Department and local authorities and the integrity of the issue itself to make sure that the public does not lose faith in our ability as their political leaders to solve it. We must not shoot first and ask questions later. It is important that we actually go through a formal process to get the full understanding, so that we can have a full and proper response.

Where the recategorisation has happened, it has only happened with the agreement of local authorities. It has not been at my direction or anything like that, which the Deputy has said on the record of the Dáil. It has only been done in agreement with local authorities, in cases where both agree that the people concerned are not in emergency accommodation. Deputy Ó Broin has cited section 10 funding. I have already indicated that section 10 funding is not a guide as to whether people are in emergency accommodation because the funding has been used for other reasons. The Deputy has spoken about whether there is a tenancy in place. However, these people are not in temporary accommodation. They are at no risk of being de-tenanted. They are at no risk of entering emergency accommodation. Many have not even come from emergency accommodation, and they are not even leaving the home in many instances.

I refer to one instance of a local authority that reported people as homeless. Not only were they not homeless, they were not even on the housing list, because they had received HAP support. This is the problem that I am facing. It is a very mixed picture from several local authorities, and we are working through that at the moment. Where we agree with the local authority on a miscategorisation, be it an individual or a family, I am very confident that they are not homeless and they are not in emergency accommodation. They are in safe, front-door, own-key homes. They are not at risk of entering emergency accommodation.

However, regardless of any of that, the most important thing is that we are supporting our citizens, be they in emergency accommodation or in their own homes. That is exactly what we are doing. What I will not do is say to someone who is in a hostel night to night and is walking the streets every day that they are in exactly the same situation as someone who has been living in a home for the past two years, with their own key and their own door, at no risk of entering emergency accommodation. They are two very different situations and very different circumstances. If we are to have the right policy responses for either of those people we need to understand that they are in different situations and treat them accordingly. That is what we are trying to do. I have already said that I will come before the committee when I have the report and the facts, and we can go through this in detail. That is what I am prepared to do. At the moment, I am afraid, there is an air of confusion which is not helping the matter.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I would like to welcome the Minister and his Department here today. I think everybody acknowledges and we all agree that we need more housing. In County Louth, one of the counties mentioned, the waiting time to receive a home was a maximum of two or three years when I was on the council 20 or 30 years ago. This week it is at least eight and a half years. In fact, it is rapidly becoming the case that people's children will be teenagers before they get a home. A lot of those children went on the housing list at the age of ten or 11. It is a very serious and acute problem. The Minister is dealing with it properly in my view, and I think that some of the solutions are quite radical. He is cutting through the red tape.

The point I hear most from the Minister concerns the accountability of the local authorities. The Department does not build housing. It makes sure that the funds are provided to councils to do that, and the Minister's other policy issue is to remove any blockages that might be in the way, administratively, bureaucratically, planning-wise and so on. The figures on fast-track planning with An Bord Pleanála that the Minister provided show that a significant number of new developments have been authorised. I know that in County Louth there are more starts now than there ever were before. I just want to make this point. Nobody has a monopoly of concern on this matter. Everybody has the same wish - that any family that needs proper decent accommodation has its needs met. In Drogheda by the end of the first quarter of next year there will be 155 more families in local authority housing than there are today. That is the first time that has happened in years. In Ardee there will be more than 100 families in housing, the biggest number we have had in years. In Dundalk, I understand there are at least 100 new families who will be in homes by this time next year.

That is hugely important. It is not anywhere like a solution but the Minister and his Department are getting there. Far from knocking people off housing lists and those kinds of allegations, Louth County Council has set up the vacant homes scheme in the county and it leads the country on putting families into homes that had been boarded up. More than 60 houses were boarded up, empty and abandoned this time last year but families are about to move into these viable, proper homes that meet their needs. We have to have perspective in this debate. It is true that things are bad and what happened in our country is appalling but we are getting to grips with it.

I welcome the appointment of vacant homes officers in each county. I presume there will be a national plan. Will someone in the Department will drive the agenda because that would be hugely important? The Minister said, kindly, that some local authorities are doing the business and others are not doing their job. It is essential that counties be given targets. If Louth can produce 60 homes in a 12-month period, at least 2,000 homes could be identified by this time next year, which could be occupied in addition to the other homes that are being built.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Under Rebuilding Ireland, which is a €6 billion programme over five years, we will meet the housing needs of 130,000 people, which is quite something, although only 50,000 will go into social housing stock However, as we move beyond Rebuilding Ireland into Project Ireland 2040, and the first ten-year horizon in the national development plan to 2027, we will bring an average of 12,000 homes per year after 2021 into the social housing stock. That will have a big impact in continuing to put people into social housing homes rather than have them rely on the private rental sector. Many will want to rely on the private rental sector and we will have to strike a balance but we will not stop building.

I wanted to ensure that during my time in office I put in place a successor plan for Rebuilding Ireland, and Project Ireland 2040 is the beginning of that plan. We know what the ambition and the funding requirement are and we can fill out the details as we get closer to 2021. Based on what the local authorities are doing now, we will have built seven times as many social housing homes by the end of 2018 as we did in 2016, although the number built that year was low.

Recently, I visited a site in Wicklow. It is 16 years since Wicklow County Council built any homes. Some local authorities have been out of the game for a while and we are now restarting the engines.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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That is inaccurate.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I am sorry, I am only going on what the chief executive officer told me.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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That is inaccurate.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I will clarify that with the chief executive officer.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I even opened a site myself as chairman of Wicklow County Council in 2013.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Was it have been built under Part V?

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I could not believe that the Minister made that statement last night.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I am only making it based on the information that the chief executive officer gave me.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister should check his information before he makes such claims.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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That is from the chief executive officer.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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We will get to that.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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More than 20 schemes have been delivered in Wicklow over the past 16 years. The Minister should go back to the chief executive officer and ask him. I opened two myself-----

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I do not know if they were delivered directly by the local authority or if they were delivered by a different mechanism.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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They were delivered by the local authority.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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All I am going on is the information I was given while I was there.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister should check his sources.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Minister should put a call into the chief executive officer and get him on the telephone.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Ó Broin will call the chief executive officer in Wicklow. He is good at that. I am only going on information that I was given.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister said this on the record in the Dáil.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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That is because as far as I understand, it is true.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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It is incorrect.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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If it is incorrect, I will correct the record.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Casey will have an opportunity to contribute shortly. Can the Minister respond to Deputy O'Dowd?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Local authorities have been out of the building game for a number of years, whether it is 13, 14 or 16 or however many years. There is a huge amount of work happening. My responsibility and that of the Department is to drive that effort. That is why we have the housing summit, the new unit and why we are providing new resources where they are needed, not only in the Department but also in the local authorities. The fast track process is working very well. It is not a year old but after a year, we will probably undertake a review. There has been a soft review to see what has been approved or declined and why. Some issues that we thought might have washed out in the pre-application consultations did not and we will look over that. However, it has been successful for the most part. Regarding progress, we are meeting the timelines for the fast-track process which is very good.

Louth County Council has done a huge amount on vacant homes and it is to be commended. The council has used, or threatened to use, compulsory purchase order powers and getting vacant property back into use which is good. Its officials have led the way for other local authorities and shared their expertise at the housing summit, which has been helpful. The Department has a vacancy team to work with vacancy officers in each local authority. We are devising more incentives that can be put in place to help local authorities to deliver on their targets for getting vacant units back into use.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Has a plan been given to local authorities?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The local authorities have come to us with a number that they think is achievable through vacancy. We will work with them on delivering that number back into use.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I respect what the Minister is saying but it has been pointed out to me that some local authorities may need to be given targets rather than them providing their own targets, depending on the type of county.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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There is a balance to be struck with local authorities. We want regeneration and reduced vacancy rates but we also want new schemes. We want to make sure that the resources are available in order that they can progress both.

Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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I have some questions about the compilation of the official national homelessness statistics. There was a huge surge coming into the new year. If the recategorisation to which the Minister referred had not taken place, the March figure would have increased to more than 10,000 for the first time in the history of the State. That would have been a real milestone, which would have resulted in shockwaves. However, the figure did not exceed 10,000 because of the recategorisation and not because there had been a large number of new homes and the homeless figures had genuinely been slashed. It is right and proper that the Minister should have to answer questions about the legitimacy of the recategorisation. I have observations and questions on this.

The recategorisation came out of the blue. No member of the committee was informed in advance that a recategorisation would take place. It seems it came about without consultation or agreement with the people doing the work on the ground in the housing departments of the local authorities. There was the extremely unusual situation, which may not be unprecedented, of a local authority refusing to comply with the directions that it had received from the Department. Kildare County Council stated in newspaper reports, "As the transitional accommodation provided does not meet the needs of the families concerned the Mid-East region did not re-categorise these families". At the very least, it was controversial among the people who are doing the work on the ground in local authorities. Where was the consultation or agreement with them? The Minister said that two reports are awaited which will help to address the issue of correctly categorising homelessness figures. He said one had been instigated in January. Why did he not wait to allow those reports to be completed, complied, published and debated before making a move? Was it because he was desperate to prevent by any means necessary the figures from exceeding the 10,000 mark with the shock and debate that would take place as a consequence and the pressure that he and the Government would be put under with the number going above such a sensitive level?

I understand that section 10 funding was introduced in the Housing Act 1988. It stipulates the grounds on which local authorities can fund accommodation for homeless persons. Deputy Ó Broin has presented figures to the committee showing that the overwhelming majority of people who were recategorised and taken off the official national homeless list were people whose accommodation was being provided by local authorities on the basis of section 10 funding. The Department removing those people from the list without any real discussion or debate about section 10 funding shows a degree of panic and desperation. It clearly points in that direction.

The Minister should not have recategorised the vast majority of those 578 people. They were still being housed with section 10 funding. Given the level of opposition at executive level in at least one and possibly more local authorities, the Minister certainly should not have recategorised people without a debate. It seems he could not wait, probably for the reasons I have outlined.

I want to ask about-----

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy needs to conclude.

Deputy Mick Barry:

The Minister has indicated some dissatisfaction with the idea of monthly reporting. He has said today that it is resource intensive. He has not answered the question asked as to whether it is his intention to end monthly reporting and move to quarterly reporting. I would like more information on his stance on that issue now.

Deputy Eoghan Murphy:

Unfortunately we are dealing with a lot of misinformation here. The Deputy cited Kildare; Kildare is not involved in a recategorisation. There was a surge in the number of presentation in January and February. When we saw the surge in January over December, I asked the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive to prepare a report on the reasons for the increase in presentations. At the time I was told these were unanticipated increases. It is possible to anticipate increases for certain reasons but these were presentations for reasons that had not been anticipated. I asked the DRHE to complete a more detailed report on that.

We do not know when the miscategorisation occurred. The Deputy said if it had not occurred at X time, we would have reached a homelessness figure of 10,000. We do not know that because we do not know when the miscategorisation occurred. What we know is that the global number is lower than what we thought it was. I said previously that 10,000 does not tell us anything that 9,600 does not tell us, which is that we have a crisis. As far as the public are concerned, they think we have reached 10,000. One of the red tops stated "10,000 now sleeping on the streets" when the March report was published. Unfortunately there is considerable misinformation on the subject, which is what I am trying to clarify and clean up. We know that family presentations in Dublin reduced by 50% between February and March, which is welcome. We do not know if it is a trend because it is not possible to detect trends from month to month, which is a further problem with monthly reporting.

The recategorisation was brought to my attention when the March homeless report was brought to my attention in that people who were not in emergency accommodation were being counted as being in emergency accommodation. It only happened with the agreement of the local authorities involved. There was no opposition to it. It is not a question of local authorities refusing to comply because local authorities did not get a direction. As I said, Kildare was not involved in this. It was a January report into something else that brought this to our attention together with the March homeless numbers. So it was not actually for this. When I was told about it, I could not keep it from the public because I knew it meant we had a problem with our data. That is why I was upfront about it and why I said we were doing more to get to the bottom of it. What was presented to me in March is now rolled into the report that was instigated at the beginning of January. It will come to its conclusion very shortly because I want to be able to publish it so that we can talk about this.

The second report is coming from the interagency group which I set up at the housing summit in September. It was as a result of a request from the NGOs to better co-ordinate the State resources in working with them because a number of things were falling through the gap in terms of funding commitments or resources and those types of things between the different partner organisations and the different types of care supports they were putting in place. That work has been ongoing and we will get its first report very shortly. It will continue to exist as a body to better co-ordinate the Government response to the crisis we face.

Section 10 provides for funding for emergency accommodation. As I mentioned earlier, local authorities have been using that funding to prevent people from going into emergency accommodation or to get them out of emergency accommodation. Therefore it is not just being used to fund hostels, hotels, hubs and everything else. We will have to look at that to ascertain the implications of how it is being spent in other areas. As I said, Deputy Ó Broin's figures are not accurate and are not official; it is not a complete picture. If we want to avoid doing any more damage at present, we should wait for the complete picture. I think the Deputy is obsessing about the wrong things here. We should be focusing on the pathways, the supports for the people who are in emergency accommodation and not this desperate attempt to reach a figure of 10,000.

Senator Jennifer Murnane O'Connor:

That is where my concern is. I am very disappointed with the Minister's answers so far today. When we last spoke about building houses I know I said to him up in the Chamber that it was a bit like Groundhog Day. He came to Carlow last year to launch all these new projects, which we welcomed. However, some of them have not even started. Some of them have started and some are half finished. They were promised a few years ago, a bit like what Deputy Casey mentioned. We need to be careful. This is where the problem is. The figures we are given are so far out that it frightens me. Most of us here have worked in local authorities, in my case for nearly 18 years. As a former chair of the housing SPC for 15 years, I saw many of the issues that arise at local authority level.

The Minister spoke about the timescale. In 2017, only 141 houses were purchased, leased or built for social housing in Carlow. That is a very small scale. I have all the targets for 2019, 2020 and 2021. I hope they are achievable. However, this is where the system is failing. Carlow has a cap of 27,000 above which people cannot go on the housing list. We are making people homeless now. Our neighbouring county, Kilkenny, has a cap of 33,500. It is unacceptable. I have brought this to the Minister's attention. I know of people who are becoming homeless. This is where the system is failing the people because there is no joined-up thinking.

I could write the book on the housing assistance payment. I have so many cases involving the HAP. Carlow did not qualify as a rent pressure zone with maximum rent increases of 4%. As I have previously informed the Department, the monthly rent on a house in Carlow has gone from €750 to nearly €1,000. That is within a few months or a year at most. Twenty-one local authorities qualify as rent pressure zones. We are in an emergency. The Minister should give everybody the chance. When living in an area it is very hard to justify how one particular housing body can do so badly and others can get so much. That is where the system is failing.

I wish to ask about rough sleepers. My area, thank God, is not as bad as Dublin in this regard and what has been happening in Dublin is sad. What is the Minister's policy for rough sleepers? What is the policy of each local authority to say what a rough sleeper is and how they qualify? My area had a few rough sleepers and I fought a battle. I can go through the different cases with the Minister.

The Minister mentioned that he is getting figures from the 31 local authorities. Is he actually going down and talking to people in each local authority? Is he listening to us, who are on the ground and are bringing cases to the Minister and telling him truthfully what is happening in our areas? I am not knocking local authorities. However, we are coming to the Minister all the time with different figures and different cases. I am telling the Minister about the rent pressure zones and the cap, but nothing has been done.

The Minister mentioned that he was delighted that there have been 700 new staff members in local authorities in the last few months. That is welcome, but he did not mention that over the last six years, Carlow local authority has lost 120 staff members. I think the figure is between 110 and 120 staff. Why? Because we were not recruiting. There might be two or three staff members here or there, but the Minister has not mentioned that most local authorities have lost a major number of staff in the past several years. It is unfair to the local authorities. What is actually happening is that they are understaffed, and that causes major problems. What exactly are we doing about staff?

The other thing I want to ask about is the mortgage to rent pilot scheme. Can I have an update on that? I also want to ask the Minister about the roll-out of the awareness campaign on the options for families at risk of losing their homes. What are the figures on that? I do not find that it comes up too much, and I deal with housing a lot in my own area. Can I have the figures and statistics on this?

I want to ask the Minister about action 1.35 of his status report, under the first pillar. It states: "We will develop a homelessness prevention strategy for non-nationals without entitlements (Habitual Residence conditions)." I will give the Minister an example. I could provide hundreds of examples, but this is just one. There is a lady I have lived near all my life who married a non-national. She is expecting a child. We have declared her husband and we have all the paperwork in order. However, unless people actually declare, the council will not accept that they can go on as a couple. There are so many issues that are not being addressed.

What exactly are we going to do going forward? Will the Minister and his Department meet with every local authority to get the figures and the statistics? Will he meet with the committee here as well? We can sit down and give the Minister the cases that are of real concern to us. I approached the Minister at the last meeting and asked if he could do anything for me concerning the rent pressure zones. He said he could not. I was very disappointed with that. I was also very disappointed with the Department's answer when I asked it about the cap for Carlow County Council. They keep telling me they will come back to me. We are making people homeless. For example, in my own local authority, which is where I am very focused-----

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Senator has gone over six minutes.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail)
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If the Minister could come back to me with some of those answers, I would really appreciate it.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senator for those questions. In regard to the local authorities' build projects, I note that the local authorities are not giving me the wrong numbers. People might think the numbers are too low or could be more ambitious, but the numbers they are giving me are accurate. I have to account for every euro spent on each of these projects. Last year we spent all of our current budget and all of our capital budget. Indeed, we are at risk of overrunning our capital budget, so I requested another €100 million. I received it, and that was spent. The numbers are accurate because we have to account for those. It is a different question if people do not like the numbers.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail)
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The Minister is mixing up the timescales. The timescales are off.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I am not mixing up any timescales. I have been clear about the timescales that are in place. Some 40,000 tenancies have been provided with housing assistance payment, HAP, so far. We have about 20,000 landlords working under HAP and an average of 300 HAP tenancies being secured each week, so it is working successfully. On our policy for rough sleepers, where people are found to be sleeping rough, there is an outreach team to engage with those people to try, on the night in question or over a series of nights, to bring them into emergency accommodation and then find them a sustainable exit from that emergency accommodation. We hear anecdotally that other local authorities sometimes tend to send people sleeping rough in their own areas down to Dublin. They believe there are better services there, because the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive has been doing this with our partner organisations on a much greater scale and as a much bigger problem. As a result, rough sleepers from other local authority areas do present in Dublin from time to time.

Do I visit the local authorities? Of course I do. However, I have also met local authorities twice in two housing summits. I will meet them at a third housing summit. I am meeting the housing delivery teams this evening. They are actually in Dublin themselves, and the Department is constantly engaging with them. I also visit the County and City Management Association, CCMA. There is constant interaction with the local authorities, because I have to drive them to get the work done. As I say-----

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail)
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I must correct the Minister. Every local authority’s policies are different. That is where the problem is. What works for one local authority is not happening in another area. That is the problem. It is unfair if the Minister does not give direction to each local authority on policies. It is not right. The stronger ones are gaining, but the weaker ones are suffering. The Minister needs to put a system in place. He has no system.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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That is what we have-----

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Minister will provide answers.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail)
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Sorry.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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-----put in place with the housing delivery unit. I gave an example earlier of finding a local authority interpreting government policy in the wrong way because a Deputy brought it to my attention. We can then direct that local authority as to what the actual intention of the policy is. In the example I gave earlier, it was to make staged payments. Senator Murnane O'Connor asked me to do something that I cannot do. I cannot change an area and make it a rent pressure zone, RPZ. That is against the law. There is a legal, statutory basis for how an area becomes a rent pressure zone. It is not my decision as a Minister. I cannot do that. I ask the Senator not to ask things of me that I cannot do.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail)
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If the Minister cannot deliver rent pressure zones to other areas, then there is a problem.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I cannot break the law.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Senator should not interrupt.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail)
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No, I am sorry. It is very unfair that other counties are suffering because the bigger counties are getting the rent pressure zones. Again, it is the smaller counties that are being totally forgotten. That is absolutely unacceptable.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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If the Senator asks a question, she has to let the Minister answer it.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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There is a statutory basis for how an area becomes a rent pressure zone that is outside of my control. It is outside of my control-----

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail)
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The Government should not have brought in the measure if the Minister is not going to be fair to every local authority. It is not fair to local authorities that are not qualifying.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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There are qualifying criteria under two separate-----

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail)
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I have seen them.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Right. That was decided by law and passed by the Oireachtas, not the Department. That determines how areas become rent pressure zones.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The committee was involved as well.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Yes, and there was probably a very good reason it is not in the power of a Minister to grant favours to particular areas and not to others.

I will now refer to the mortgage to rent, MTR, numbers. Some 318 MTR cases have been completed to date. There are 671 in process at the moment. There has been a review of mortgage to rent, which has streamlined the process. We made an additional €5 million euro available in the budget for this year. There is €22 million in total available for this year. There is a pilot at the moment asking private investors to indicate their willingness to engage in a new MTR pilot scheme. We had expressions of interest earlier this year, and the pilot is being assessed at the moment using the housing agency. There is a lot more that we can deliver through mortgage to rent, but it has to be done in agreement with the person living in the home.

I do not have the figures concerning the prevention campaign on me, but I can get them to the Senator.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The rent pressure zone legislation went through this committee, so we are aware of the parameters and restrictions contained in it

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail)
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We were told that everywhere would be looked at as it went forward and an area could qualify on the second round. That is what we were told.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I am just saying that we did go through that legislation.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail)
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Yes, but we were told that there would be another criterion and a second round. We were told that here.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Yes we were, if an area qualified.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail)
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Yes, we were. I wish to clarify that.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I will start with the homelessness figures. If there is any lesson has been learned today, it is not to go out in public without the accurate information. Maybe the Minister went a little too far in adjusting the March figures. I wish to focus on the homelessness figures and the use of both hotels and supported accommodation. Although the previous Minister promised that nobody would be living in hotels by the end of June 2017, since that time we have seen a 21% increase in the use of hotels for accommodation for homeless families. At the same time, we are seeing a 17% increase in the use of supported accommodation for families. While I know that huge efforts are being made to try to tackle this, we are simply not dealing with the issue, or not getting on top of it, because it continues to escalate month on month.

In regard to the rapid-build programme for families currently in emergency accommodation, the Rebuilding Ireland programme committed to delivering 1,500 rapid build houses by the end of the fourth quarter of 2018. We all know that at the end of 2017, only 208 had been delivered. The recent report on Rebuilding Ireland is only promising to deliver another 637 by the end of 2019. What is the delay? What is going to happen to the shortfall of the houses that were promised, which is probably another 700, and are we still moving people directly from emergency accommodation into these houses? Is that policy staying in place?

I refer also to the social housing construction programme. I am not going to make an issue of it, but regrettably the figures for the fourth quarter of 2017 are still not available in Excel or text format. They are still only available in portable document format, PDF. One cannot sort anything out in PDF.

I am going to use the third quarter figures that I have. The 59 week process was mentioned. How many of the 504 projects in the fourth quarter are taken beyond the 59 week process that we are trying to achieve? I have a number of project at stage 1 in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. I think I have 40 programmes to deliver 685 houses still at stage 1, the capital appraisal process. May I have an update on the programmes?

The Minister has committed to buying houses in areas outside of high demand, and has set a target of 900 houses. Who makes the decision as to what is a high demand area and following on from that is it the decision of the local authority to decide where the houses are bought?

I will make a brief comment on short-term letting as it does have an effect on housing. What is the position on the proposed legislation on short-term letting platforms? The committee did an excellent report on it and my party has introduced a Bill and we are still awaiting a detailed report.

There is a significant concern in the approved housing bodies sector in respect of the recent EUROSTAT decision that their funding is now on balance sheet. Will the Minister provide an update on that? What is the process moving forward?

Last night the Minister made a statement in the Dáil giving figures for the number of houses built in County Wicklow. However, I have the Department's statistics for the number of houses built by Wicklow County Council over successive years and it is as follows: 79, 91, 68, 158, 30, 120, 176, 140, 16, 08, 0 and 08. Will the Minister correct the record of the Dáil in respect of his statement last night?

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Casey.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Casey for his questions. The Deputy's first question related to the mis-categorisation and re-categorisation of the homeless that took place as a result of the March figures, it was a judgment call but I am quite convinced that had I gone out into the public and given a number that I knew was not correct, that would have been the wrong thing to do. I do not like to give information when I do not have the full facts to hand but I was in a position where I had to produce a report for the monthly figures. I knew that the number was incorrect, it had been overstated and it was still overstated when I put out the global number for March. It is still not the correct number because the mis-categorisations were still on the system and had not been worked out, but I felt it would have been irresponsible of me to come out and not be honest and upfront that this had occurred. To have gone about it in any other way would have been wrong.

The use of hotels for emergency housing is very difficult because we all agree that not one family should be in housed in a hotel as emergency accommodation. That is why we have the family hub programme and we have almost 500 family hub places with more coming online every month. Unfortunately, because the number of families in hotels are still roughly a little bit higher than at this time last year, it gives the impression that the families have been there all this time and that nothing has happened. In fact over the course of 2017, more than 2,000 people in families left hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation and the majority went into homes. Significant work is being done by local authorities, by the homeless executive, the NGO sector and partner organisation to help these families, but families in need of accommodation continue to present, seeking housing. That is the reason that I put such an emphasis on prevention at the beginning of this year.

What we do know thankfully from families staying in family hubs rather in hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation is that they are spending less time in that emergency accommodation. That means there is a better outcome for those families. We will continue with the family hub programme and we will make every effort to continue to move families out of hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation and into homes and sustainable pathways.

When rapid build housing was first considered and obviously the name is a bit of a misnomer, we are talking about modular prefabricated housing, that was seen as doing something on the cheap. It was seen as being less perfect than a normal home. In fact the industry has moved to off-site fabrication, pre-fabrication and modular house building which are all new technologies. All of these new technologies are happening in the private sector. It is not a second class type of home. It is just as good as any other home that is being built in the country today. I would like every local authority to move to modular prefabricated housing as it is appropriate to do so because we know we can deliver it through much quicker timelines.

What we had to put in place in February 2017 was a special procurement framework for rapid build housing but because it was only put in place at the beginning of last year, we could not deliver the number of rapid build houses that we wanted to deliver at the time. We have that new procurement model in place. We probably need to amend that procurement model because so many more companies have come in. There are even newer advances in technology that could allow us to do this even more quickly than before. As we do that, and improve the procurement framework model, we will see more local authorities move to rapid build housing. It comes back to the initial question I was asked at the very beginning of our session in terms of numbers and how we present them - we should be at a point in time this time next year when we are not even talking about rapid build houses as distinct from traditional build, it is all just build. That is what we are trying to move to at present.

On the social house construction report, I am not sure what the problem is of using a PDF in terms of what the Deputy is trying to do with an excel spreadsheet, but-----

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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One cannot sort the data on a PDF.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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It is in the excel format on the data.gov website.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I only went on this morning and it was not.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Obviously, if members find it easier to work on excel, it is something that we will deal with. The 59 week process was only something that I commenced when I came into office so it would not have been in place by the time the third quarter report was published for schemes that are detailed in that report.

The local authorities took a decision on acquisitions and have two criteria for acquisitions. The houses cannot be in high demand areas and must achieve value for money. That is a call they have to make but because they are working to budgetary envelopes from the Department and approval from the Department, they cannot go running away with acquisitions. They have their building target and they have to meet them.

On the issue of short-term letting, I received an initial draft of the report but I did not think it was robust enough. I wanted to see something that was closer to the Oireachtas joint committee's recommendations and so I am waiting to receive that report, based on feedback I gave about certain things that I think need to be delivered with that report. We need to be looking at this in terms of regulations, if we are moving to regulation and licensing as we look at bed and breakfast accommodation, but that of course requires the involvement of a Department which is not my Department. Those matters are being looked at present. I was informed this morning that the next iteration of the draft will be due very shortly. If that is what I think is a robust response to the issues we are facing, I will proceed to bring it to Cabinet and publish it as quickly as I can, notwithstanding that another Department may or does have a role here.

In respect of the reclassification for the approved housing bodies, this is being lead by the Department of Finance, and not by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. Essentially it comes down to an issue in relation to accounting and the Government balance sheet and to a EUROSTAT ruling. Work by that committee, of which we are a member Department, is progressing. I have been quite clear with the approved housing bodies that this will not diminish in any way our ambition for housing bodies to be an important delivery stream for local authority housing and to deliver what they deliver very well and sometimes to meet what are more specific or specialised requirements for social housing. We will drive on with our social housing delivery, using housing bodies. They are quite clear on that fact and they are working with us on that ruling to ensure that it does not put small roadblocks in the way but I do not foresee any. The Department of Finance is leading this and is fully aware of what the implications might be for the general Government balance or for the deficit in a given year.

Now I will deal with the figures that Deputy Casey gave for County Wicklow. I was on a site in Wicklow at which this information was given to me. I was told that this was a great day because it has not happened in X number of years. I am not aware of the delivery streams for the different numbers that the Deputy gave, but once I have proper clarity and the full facts presented to me by the local authority, which is the normal reporting mechanism for me, of course I will correct the record if that is necessary.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The figures I have given are the figures from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, they are not the figures from the local authority. One would have expected the Minister to check with his Department before he came into the Dáil last night and made a damning statement about a local authority saying it had not delivered a social house in 16 years. I think the officials of that local authority need to have the record put straight as do the public representatives who have done the work on delivering these social houses.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I did not intend in any way to make a damning statement about the local authority. My statement was directed at Fianna Fáil as a former party in government. That is-----

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister can now see he was incorrect. Why does he not use the Department's figures? He took the chief executive officer's word over his Department's figures.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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It was an anecdote. The Deputy can check it against my figures.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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It goes back to the inaccuracy of figures. The Minister has spoken throughout the meeting about having accurate and complete information but he went into the Dáil on a whim last night and made an allegation against my party. The members of the local authority who worked over the past 16 years deserve to have the record of the Dáil corrected by him in respect of the delivery of social housing in Wicklow.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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It proves the point that I continue to make that we should speak to accurate data, facts and figures and I used an anecdote that I heard while I was on a construction site.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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It was not the only inaccurate comment by the Minister last night but that is a matter for another day.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Two non-members of the committee have indicated that they would like to ask questions. I will allow them to contribute before me.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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With regard to the homeless figures, the Minister was wrong to state certain numbers that were being accounted for without checking the full facts. That was poor on his part.

With regard to RAS, many contracts are expiring and others are being terminated. Tenants in the Dublin City Council, DCC, area, in particular, are finding that the scheme cannot deliver them another place or even deliver local authority housing. A commitment was made that those who came off the scheme would be given a local authority house or another place but that is not being lived up to. The suspicion is that some landlords are trying to sell off the houses because the rents are restricted to a 4% increase on a yearly basis. Local authorities have tried to buy them from the landlords and, in most cases, they have failed. Some tenants are sitting it out in the accommodation when their contracts are up. In north Dublin, I am told more than 100 tenants are on the RAS list. Does the Minister take this figure into account?

When concerts or events are held in Dublin, homeless people who self-accommodate in hotels and bed and breakfasts find it impossible to do so. Recently, I had a family of four in my clinic who had been told that they could go to Carlow to get a place. They are homeless and have nowhere to go. It is crazy that this is happening. Are they included in the homeless figures? They could easily be described as not being homeless because many of them sleep on floors and couches of other people to accommodate themselves, which is terrible. The homeless section of the local authorities does not deal with many of the families that are self-accommodating; Focus Ireland looks after them. These families can only ring at 4 p.m. to find out if accommodation is available for them. They are in no man's land for the entire day and it is scandalous that this is happening. That needs to be examined. We cannot leave people day after day having to make a telephone call to find out where they can go. They are running around with their children and they have nowhere to stay. It is crazy and something needs to be done about that.

With regard to rapid builds, the target is 1,500 for 2018 but the Department is way behind and there has been a huge slowdown. A total of 16 infill units are being built in Rathvilly Park, Virginia Park and Valley Park in Finglas. Is there a resources issue or is there a shortage of firms to build them? If that is the case, a way must be found to contract builders to construct them faster. It is good quality housing and I have seen the units in St. Helena's Drive, Finglas and Balbutcher Lane, Ballymun. People have praised them. The Minister needs to ratchet this scheme up.

There is a big problem when people end up on the HAP homeless list. The time they are on the list is a problem. If they end up homeless, is the time they are on the list backdated? A few weeks ago, I was contacted by a person who was seventh on the DCC list but that person is now 60th on the list, which is crazy. At that rate, people will never be housed.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for his questions. With regard to the homeless issue, if I had released the March report without being upfront about the incorrect categorisation, I would have misled the public and, therefore, I had to be upfront about that at the time. I will always be honest in this job because it is important that we all are as politicians. That can be uncomfortable for some at times but I could not mislead the public at the time. That was the choice I had to make.

The difficulties being experienced by local authorities in respect of RAS have been brought to my attention. There may be an impediment in legislation to people moving immediately from RAS to HAP but we have asked local authorities to adopt flexible solutions. We have reminded them of the exceptional cases they can cite when making moves, and of their responsibility not to leave tenants on RAS without a home.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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That is happening.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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We are getting this information in and we are working with local authorities to find additional solutions.

Anyone who goes into self-accommodation in a hotel or a bed and breakfast is counted as being in emergency accommodation. The DRHE has a contingency in place for the summer months because additional pressures will be placed on the city, in particular, because of concerts and events and increased tourist numbers. The increase in tourism activity is having an knock-on effect throughout the economy with, for example, not enough jobs in certain sectors. A contingency is in place but additional contingencies will be put in place over these months. We are well aware of accommodation for families coming too late in the day. My understanding, though I have not seen the report, is that the issue has been addressed in the DRHE report. The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs has brought it to my attention on a number of occasions and a change may be made in that regard but I will have to wait to see the recommendation in the report.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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This is urgent. Young women and children are being pulled around from Billy to Jack and having to wait for telephone calls late in the day. The family of four I mentioned got a call but Focus Ireland could not secure a place for them having searched everywhere. I had to contact the homeless section of DCC but nothing was available. It is terrible.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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There is always a place and we can always find a place------

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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There is not always a place. The Minister is wrong on that and that is the problem.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I recognise that there is a problem with the way that system operates and that we can improve it. How it has operated for certain families is not acceptable. Although I have not seen the report, my understanding is recommendations are on the way in this area.

Regarding the rapid build issue, there is no problem with the number of firms or the capacity of the industry to build homes.

I attended an event recently - I cannot remember what it was - at which someone told me they were aware of a firm that was interested in coming into Ireland and building prefabricated construction homes. There are even more companies looking at Ireland with interest to get involved in this space, either to work with a local authority or on the private side with a developer.

Something we are looking at is the procurement framework we put in place last year because it may not be wide enough to accommodate some of the changes in technology to which I alluded earlier. We are looking at that again to see what can be done to make sure we are not losing any opportunities in terms of some of the companies operating in this space and exporting to other countries rather than doing it here. That is what we will try to achieve with that review.

The Deputy spoke about the HAP housing list. In regard to HAP, I recognise that we need to do more with the transfer list. Already, 900 to 1,000 people have moved out of HAP through the transfer list but, to be honest, I believe we can do more with that. That is a recommendation that is coming to me but I have not seen a draft of this report; it is just from conversations I have had in the Department. I understand a recommendation will be coming on that as well and I hope it does because it is something we need to do. I am aware Deputy Boyd Barrett has raised it on a number of occasions as well.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Bureaucratic manipulation of figures to meet targets is a feature of Stalinist dictatorships and tin-pot regimes. That is what we saw with the re-categorisation of figures in March and we should desist from trying to meet targets through such manipulations. That also matters for the Opposition. I am fed up hearing that we have to get everybody out of hotels. I am aware of families that I would like to get into hotels because there are no hubs or council houses available. That is another target we want to meet or not meet. I am glad to hear the Minister say there is nobody who does not have a place because I am dealing with two families. A woman with three children, including an infant, is wandering around the streets of Dún Laoghaire as we speak. She has been told there are no hotels available and there are no hubs. If there is a place for everybody, please offer her a place and please do not offer her a place infested with drug users and people with alcohol or other problems.

I ask the Minister about another family I am dealing with who have six children. To give the background, they have been on the housing list for 15 years. I hear people rightly being critical of being eight years on the housing list but this family have been on the housing list for 15 years . They have been in 15 different precarious types of accommodation, including HAP so-called social housing, in the past 15 years. They were pushed out of the Clayton Hotel where they had been staying since March because it is filling up for the summer, as are many of the hotels. Last night, the family was split into three different components because there was nowhere to go, and they do not know where they are going tonight either. I hope the Minister can help them as he has said on the record here that there is a place for everybody. I will expect those two cases to be resolved this evening.

Other forms of manipulation of figures include knocking people off housing lists because their income is slightly over the threshold even though there is absolutely no accommodation for them. I told the Minister of State, Deputy English, in the Dáil a couple of weeks ago about three cases I am dealing with where people got a little bonus on their salary, who did a little extra overtime or whose income very marginally went over the €35,000 threshold. They have been taken off the list, in some cases having been on it for ten or 15 years. That is manipulation of the figures because there is no solution. If there was an actual functioning affordable housing scheme for those who were thrown off lists I would say, "Yes, maybe" but that should not be allowed. Those people should be put back on the list immediately until there is something else available. I would like a response to that because at the moment there is nothing for that group of people and it is wrong to throw them off the list.

On the emergency aspect, I want to make a serious proposal. With the hotels filling up for the summer we are in a dire situation. There are no hotels available in many cases, particularly at the weekends. We need immediate action on that. I have two proposals. First, we need extra staff and resources provided in each local authority whose job is to spend the entire day phoning around for accommodation. Families who are dragging around three, five or six children should not be expected to spend half the day on the phone trying to find accommodation that does not exist. I propose we have properly resourced teams who will get on the phone the moment those people present and find them somewhere to stay. Second, we need teams of people who will walk around the towns in the affected areas physically looking at every empty property and approaching the property owner and saying, "What is happening with that property?". I can tell the Minister that in my area now there are at least 30 units sitting empty that I can name and provide him with the addresses. In fact, there are over 30. There are 25 in Robin Hill, which I have mentioned in the Dáil several times. The Robin Hill apartments are in the hands of Cerberus. They have been sitting empty for about three or four years. I am sick to my back teeth with this because that could solve some of the emergency cases. They were sold to Cerberus by NAMA and it is just sitting on them. Similarly, St. Helen's Court in Dún Laoghaire is owned by Apollo Global Management, another vulture fund. It is de-tenanting the complex. There are four or five empty units there at the moment. The Minister should give the local authority the power to go down there and say, "What are you doing with those units? We are taking those units". I do not care what has to be done. Whatever powers or emergency legislation is necessary to empower the local authorities to make those units available for people should be put in place.

Lastly, for six or seven years I have been campaigning to get council houses built on the Shanganagh site and this game of Ping-Pong is still going on between the Department and the council. We hear that it is up to the council to come up with a plan and the council says it cannot get the funding from the Department. It is just Ping-Pong and nothing happens. People from the Minister's Department who are empowered to make decisions should meet the Deputies, councillors and those officials in the council who can actually make decisions. They could sit down for two, three or four hours or whatever is necessary to identify the blockages to getting that site moving. I personally believe the blockage is the Minister's insistence on having the private sector in some way involved. If I am wrong, let us find out with a proper sit-down instead of the Ping-Pong that has been going on for years.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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That is seven minutes. I have to let the Minister back in.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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That is it.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Boyd Barrett for his questions. There is no bureaucratic manipulation going on here. The Deputy referenced Stalin. Historically, it is the hard left that have been the ones who have been good at manipulation.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Minister is always against Stalin.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thought you were Trotskyites.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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We are Trotskyites, yes. We are against Stalin.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Sorry. I beg your pardon.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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He got an ice pick in the head for his opposition to Stalin.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I think propaganda as a term was invented-----

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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He did not like bureaucratic manipulation.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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-----by the Communists. It is not a question of targets I have set for myself. The only target is to try to get everyone out of emergency accommodation into safe, sustainable homes. That is an ambition we all share.

When it comes to the individual cases the Deputy presents, that is the point in one regard as to why this is more difficult than people anticipate or understand. Individual families have individual needs and we have to be sensitive to those needs. That means in many instances tailored solutions for those families. The Deputy and I have spoken previously about families who become attached to a particular area because they have been in a hotel for so long and the difficulty that then presents in trying to get that family out of that particular hotel into a home that is available because they now have roots.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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They will take a house.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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We have spoken about certain instances where they refused not just one home but two homes because as they were in a hotel they have roots in that community. Those are the difficulties we encounter and those are the ones we are trying to work through.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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That is spurious. Come on.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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It is not.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Allow the Minister to continue, without interruption. Members, I cannot hear what is being said.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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We have talked about this previously.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Can the Minister get somewhere for these people tonight?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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We know hotels are not the answer.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Minister, without interruption. Deputy, to be fair, you were not interrupted. Everybody has respected that.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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We know hotels are not the answer.

Every time an individual case has come to us, my officials and I have worked to help people in such circumstances. Let us continue to do that because that is the way to get a resolution for the people concerned.

We are not knocking people off the housing lists either. It is not manipulation. There are qualifying criteria that have to be observed. We talk about things like overtime but in some instances overtime is a permanent payment which is a different way of increasing a salary without calling it an increase. There are different payment schemes in operation in different companies and organisations. When that happens there should be a readily available, affordable scheme for the person concerned to move into, but let us not pretend, as a group of politicians, that we are dealing with these problems in a normal, functioning or stable housing market. We are not. We are playing catch up, big time, from years of massive undersupply. As we do that we face the incredible pressures we see in our society at the moment. Some people are in emergency accommodation or cannot qualify for social housing, while others cannot get their deposit together and are under great pressure meeting their rent payments. We are trying to manage the incredible challenges we have while also increasing supply because fundamentally that is the solution to 95% of the problems that confront us at the moment in respect of housing, homes and shelter. An affordable scheme is on the way and money is available for it, which is important.

On the Deputy's proposals, we have provided extra resources for the local authorities through the place finder service. We are putting extra resources into the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive. We also have the report from the executive and its recommendations. We have vacancy teams on the ground in each local authority looking at vacant properties. Just because something is vacant it does not mean we can go and grab it. It is not that easy. However, I will ask Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council how many compulsory purchase orders it has issued over the course of the last 12 months and the number of vacancies it has identified. The council provided numbers at the housing summit in January. If the Deputy is convinced of this number of properties, let us see what is actually happening on the ground in the local authority area.

There is a proposal for social and affordable housing in Shanganagh. Funding is not the issue, nor is securing agreement from my Department. We need to make sure the plan is robust and will work. We have received the plan and we are going through it. That is what we are doing at the moment and we can then move forward with it.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I would like clarification on one or two points. Staffing and resources have been mentioned numerous times. Some figures were given very recently. Any additional staff that are required in the delivery of housing on any level can be directly linked with or charged to the Department. I have a figure for the number of jobs sanctioned in the past year or so, but I would like the Minister to verify it. I know it takes time for local authorities to complete the process of hiring people. In respect of the jobs that were sanctioned, it is my understanding that interim staff can be contracted to bridge the gap in order that construction is not delayed. That has been pointed out in the committee numerous times. We need to reaffirm that with local authorities and make sure they are using that tool.

It is a massive issue but we are losing sight of the complexities that are involved. I have heard many numbers being bashed around in the last hour or two. Behind all these numbers are people. We cannot lose sight of the fact that these people are going through a very difficult time in their lives. Regardless of what we say here, it is the policies we decide that will get them a home and a roof over their heads. We cannot become distracted from that objective by messing around with figures when we could spend our time discussing policies to be implemented to get houses on the ground. That is what our focus must be, although it is fine with me if members may take a different view.

I have a figure on the number of staff that have been approved and sanctioned and it is substantial. Will the Minister confirm that figure? While I am aware of the difficulties local authorities are experiencing in recruiting staff, I do not know whether they are contracting staff. We need to reaffirm and inform local authorities that this option is available. Properly resourced teams also come down to staffing. It is my understanding that it is up to the county manager to identify where those needs and deficits are and to make sure those positions are filled. I would not expect the Minister to micromanage that aspect.

Deputy Boyd Barrett is correct that we sat on the issue of Shanganagh for years, including many years of the recession. Deputy Boyd Barrett, Senator Boyhan and I were on the same council in 2008 when we saw a massive reduction in Part 8 development and the withdrawal of Government funding and when we became completely reliant on the private sector. We cannot lose sight of that because we all saw it happen. We are trying to rebuild in that area despite the complexities around sites that have infrastructure deficits, may be partially zoned or serviced, and may have problems around access. The local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, is addressing a number of those issues.

I know Rebuilding Ireland is two years old but we always said it would be the end of the second or third year before results would come on stream. The simple idea which I always try to explain to people is that if I wish to apply for planning permission to build an extension or a house in my garden, it may take the best part of year to complete the process. I may have to wait on drawings before submitting an application. I will then have to wait on the application to go through the process, which the Government has streamlined to be of assistance. It also takes time to find a contractor to do the work. We are only two years into Rebuilding Ireland. We are trying to bring up staffing and resources, get the banking sector to a position of providing finance and get contractors on site in circumstances where we have construction staff shortages on many levels. We cannot lose sight of the complexities involved. Behind all that, we are getting distracted by numbers instead of talking about people.

There are a number of issues I would like clarified on local authority staffing and the Shanganagh site. I know there have been many meetings on this very good proposal from all councillors in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. The proposal has also been supported by the council executive. The Department was supportive of this site from early in the process and continues to be supportive, especially when it came to LIHAF funding and attempts to fast-track the proposal for 540 units. We can discuss the breakdown whether all housing on the site should be social units or whether it should be a mix of private and social units but that is a matter for the councillors on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to decide. The emphasis is on getting the site up and running. I have asked only one or two questions on which I need answers. I would like to focus on delivery rather than making a political football of the issue.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Chair. I will just pick up on two points she raised a high level. The Rebuilding Ireland programme was launched in 2016 and is all about delivery. It cannot just be published and put on a shelf. It is not a document but a tool that must be delivered. We have to keep a constant laser-like focus on delivery. Where delivery is not happening or needs to be sped up or where something needs to be tweaked we take action.

The second point, speaking at a high level, is that a balance needs to be struck. We have different layers of government in this country. We have local authorities and national government and I have to try to find a balance with local authorities when exercising my powers. For example, when the previous Minister moved on the idea of the fast-track planning process we had to take powers away from local authorities do that. However, that was done in the national interest thinking about the bigger picture. These were large schemes and we have a housing shortage and an undersupply. As we move to do things we must be careful to ensure we always strike that balance because democracy works best when it is closest to the people. We do not want to centralise too much in Government or in the Department. At the same time, we have to recognise that local authorities are sometimes limited in what they are able to do.

In the case of the planning process, we do not want any unnecessary delays. We have put the fast-track planning process in place and I have appointed additional members to the board to make sure there are no unnecessary delays. However, we must also be careful because this country is dogged by a history of bad planning decisions. Planning is an issue we have not got right for decades, which is the reason Dublin is the way it is. The city was not designed but just kind of happened and happened in the wrong way. It is why some fantastic buildings which should never have been knocked down were demolished. We have to be mindful of the existing built heritage. We also have to take cognisance of the fact that we have a crisis. Again, there is a balance to be struck in the area of planning.

On delivery in local authority areas, I made it clear to local authorities at the housing summit in January that they could fund new staff for delivery and the Department would take on the financial burden. Since 2015 more than 700 staff - I put the exact number on the record yesterday evening - were approved to be allocated to housing roles. We also have to recognise from where we were coming as many staff had been lost. There is still more to do in that area in terms of more resources. That is a significant number, however, and as we interact with each local authority, which we are doing through the housing unit, when we think that an additional person might be able to deliver a site with 50 homes or get something done through the repair and lease scheme, as has happened in certain local authorities, that person should be contracted in. My officials met representatives of the County and City Management Association, CCMA, today about putting those positions in place. We will get a more detailed report on what exactly the local authorities have done at the June summit.

One will try to assist the local authority in that regard, referring to the Department and to delivery. If it has not done anything six months later, however, one has to readdress the question as to where the balance is and consider taking responsibility from the local authority and putting in our own teams. We are considering that in respect of a couple of local authorities.

With regard to Shanganagh, circumstances on sites can be very frustrating. I have been to sites in probably every local authority area that have been sitting idle for years, for various reasons. Various problems might have been found on the sites. Obviously, there were difficult years when coming out of the crisis but we now have an opportunity to get moving because the funding is available. We do not want to see any unnecessary delays. The unit is in place to make sure that, where there is a knot between the Department and the local authority, it can be untied very quickly without delay.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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We have until 5 p.m. There are nine present and there are 90 minutes remaining. It is up to the members what to do. A number of them have indicated they wish to contribute. If everyone is brief, everyone will get to contribute. It is in the hands of the members. I ask them to stick to questions.

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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I will be very brief. I do not want rehashing and I do not want the Minister to come back to me straight away. Clearly, having listened to all that has been said here today regarding the validity and integrity of the figures, the time has now come for the National Oversight and Audit Commission, NOAC, or some independent body to validate them. I call for independent, external validation of the figures of the Department and NOAC could have a role. I will leave that with the Minister.

I have two or three questions. With regard to having An Bord Pleanála move online, there is no progress. I spoke to those concerned today. There is a pilot scheme in place internally. The body is not in a position to do anything until the end of the year, possibly the last quarter at the very earliest. The officials rang me back to confirm that today. I put in a question to them this morning. That is the current position and it is not good enough. When talking about the planning and development legislation, I spoke to the Minister's predecessor specifically about this and was told everything would be included, but it did not happen. I predicted it would not. We had a long debate in the Seanad on the planning and development legislation at the time in question. Can we fast-track what I propose or bring it forward because it needs to be dealt with?

On SOLAS, skills, apprenticeships and training, we have been hearing the commentary in the national press this week that there will be major shortages and problems. Perhaps the Minister will address them. He might talk to his colleague the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Humphreys, about the possibilities. She signed an order this week for the agriculture and horticulture sector. I refer to a pilot scheme to let 800 people in from outside the European Union. We need to consider this again for the construction sector. The Minister might consider this.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I will take two members at a time. That way, we might get through the business quicker.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I have a couple of questions and a comment. On St. Michael's Estate and Shanganagh, I have a very specific question. If the local authorities in the two areas in question come forward with specific proposals and seek Exchequer funding for them, will the Minister consider them actively? Is he open to them?

With regard to the story in the news this morning about an increase in the number of families being referred by homelessness services to Garda stations at night, I understand there was a very dramatic increase between March and May. Could the Minister give us the figures? What has the Department been doing to tackle this? Is it the Minister's view that the Department of Justice and Equality is playing an appropriate role alongside his own Department and Tusla in addressing this problem?

We often hear Government spokespeople stating there were approximately 3,000 exits from homelessness last year. Could the Minister confirm that half of those concerned were not people exiting emergency accommodation but people who are what we call "preventions" – people who have remained in their tenancy or who, before the notice to quit expired, moved to another tenancy, thereby never having become homeless?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Could the Deputy repeat that?

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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We often hear Government spokespeople talking about approximately 3,000 exits from homelessness in 2017. The figures actually indicate that approximately half of those were not people exiting from emergency accommodation but people who either maintained their tenancy, with a housing assistance payment increase, or who, before the notice to quit date, found a new tenancy and were never in emergency accommodation. Could he clarify that?

I have a comment on the discussion we had earlier. The Minister is saying the reclassification is by agreement with the local authorities. Kildare was not included. I wish to refer to an email I have from Kildare County Council so we are very clear. The email, which I received last week and which I will circulate to members-----

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Does Kildare County Council know the Deputy is going to refer to this?

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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This information is already in the public domain.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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It will be circulated among us.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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It states that, in April 2018, the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government contacted Kildare County Council as lead authority for the mid-east region to discuss families who are being classified as homeless but who are staying in transitional local authority-owned houses or private houses where the families had own-door access with a view to recategorising the families reported as being in temporary accommodation as accommodated in local authority housing stock. As the transitional accommodation provided does not meet the needs of the families concerned, the mid-east region did not recategorise these families, and they were reported as being in temporary emergency accommodation. The email states it is not intended to remove such families from the homeless category for the April figures. First, Kildare County Council is directly contradicting what the Minister said to this committee. It was contacted and it is saying very clearly that it was asked to change the categorisation. It says it refused. I have other emails in this regard that I will not read out. They are from Louth, Meath, Limerick and Dublin city authorities and all show a similar picture. Those concerned are telling us publicly that they did not consent to the recategorisation. In one instance, they say they refused to do so. Almost all are saying the families were not in proper tenancies, that they were not properly housed and that the accommodation they were in did not meet their needs, meaning they should therefore continue to be classified as homeless. I would like the Minister's response to that.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senator and Deputy for the questions. With regard to figures, the Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General audit everything we do so we are accountable in that way in terms of the figures. There is no question over that at all. With regard to matters such as the number of homes completed in a year, we are doing ongoing work with the CSO to get an accurate figure. We were using a proxy previously, which I stopped using when I came into office. The completions number is important. Work is happening on the numbers.

With regard to An Bord Pleanála and moving online, the work is significant and requires legislation. The latter is before the Houses but has not been passed yet. It needs to happen. There is no point in me telling the Deputy that I can fast-track the initiative when I cannot. It is something that An Bord Pleanála has to manage itself. I recognise its importance. It is a major piece of work but the legislation is still in the House.

With regard to training schemes, I have had a number of engagements with the Construction Industry Federation, both formally and less formally. A new body is being set up under Project Ireland 2040 on which the federation will sit to ensure we can manage the various infrastructural investments we have to make and have the skilled staff to do so.

One of the benefits we have seen in recent years is an increase in employment in the construction sector. We have seen an increase in skilled people coming back to the country. We have also seen a move to new technologies, which means a number of sites require fewer people than would have been required even five years ago.

Although it is not the direct responsibility of my Department, I am trying to determine whether there is some funding we can give to certain programmes that are community led. One in particular, in my constituency, took people from long-term unemployment and one person from homelessness and gave them jobs, having put them through a very good, expedited skills programme. I attended one of the graduation ceremonies. The people were graduating on a Thursday afternoon and commencing work on a Monday. Therefore, we know there is demand. We just have to make sure the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Bruton, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, and I ensure the Government is aligned in the right way.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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What about St. Michael's?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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St. Michael's is currently part of one proposal related to two other sites. I had the opportunity to visit it the other day. It was not for the first time but the first time in an official capacity. I met some community leaders. The Minister of State, Deputy Catherine Byrne, was there to guide me. It is a fantastic opportunity to build homes and regenerate the community. People would be very happy to live there. There are a couple of different proposals kicking around at the moment, including in regard to a new football stadium. We are examining everything. I hope very shortly to be able to talk a bit more about what we might be able to achieve on the site. I am having a meeting on this next week with some key stakeholders. I still have to meet a community group that I have not yet had a chance to meet. I am open to achieving something unique on the site that we have not achieved before. I should leave it at that because I do not want to put the cart before the horse.

In terms of Garda station referrals, in certain instances people will have to go to the local Garda station in regard to checking particular things regarding identity. That will happen in the normal course of events in respect of a small number of cases. We have seen some stories in the newspapers recently about people having to stay the night in Garda stations. All the full facts about those cases have not been established as to how that came about. There is a contingency in place - operated by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive - to ensure that when people present, they can be accommodated. We are looking ahead to the summer to make sure there are additional contingencies in place because we can expect additional demand on some of our emergency accommodation services. That is not because of it being the summer months and different events happening but because of an increase in tourism in those months. I have just been informed that a contingency facility was opened last night for a number of families and we have-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Has there been an increase in the number of late night referrals to Garda stations in March and April?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I do not have that figure. I am sorry.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Could that be provided to the committee? Apparently, there is a figure.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I do not want to get back into the reporting method but this is not something I receive on a monthly basis. I would love to get much more information but that would require more intensive reporting. It may not be possible to do that so we have to look at the restraints we have in that area. When I receive these reports, I often ask detailed questions and the answers are not available because the numbers have not been compiled in that particular way. When I get the report I will consider the changes that are recommended and see what we can do then based on the recommendations.

On the 4,700 exits from homelessness over the course of 2017, the Deputy is correct. When we talk about it, we are talking about exits and preventions as well. I do not have the breakdown in front of me between preventions and exits. That is something I have looked for and also a better breakdown in terms of families and individuals because I do not get that either. These are some of the weaknesses we have in reporting. I will get that provided to the Deputy.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The only reason I am asking is because the word "exit" sounds like they are exiting from emergency accommodation. For at least half of them, that is not the case. The Minister might look at that.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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When we talk about it, we talk about exits from homelessness rather than exits from emergency accommodation, and they are two different things. For someone to get, say, a preventive measure like homeless HAP they must first qualify as homeless. They get it and then they are not homeless. Does the Deputy know what I mean? It is a bureaucratic loop they have to jump through but it is an important one to make sure we are spending the money in the right way.

In regard to Kildare and the email the Deputy read out, nothing I heard contradicted anything I had said. If a local authority did not agree, then they were not included and no recategorisation took place so there was no change in that number.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister said they had not been contacted and were included. They are saying they were contacted. They were asked to reduce them and they refused.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Once we discovered that-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Are they correct?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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-----one local authority had made a miscategorisation, we then had to ask ourselves if any other local authorities had been doing that. We began contacting local authorities to tell them that we have discovered this in one local authority and to ask them if they were doing it.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister is saying the Kildare email is correct. He does not dispute anything I read out.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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They were not asked to recategorise anything.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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If the Minister had listened to what I said, that is not what they indicated in the email.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I do not have the email in front of me-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I will send it to the Minister.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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-----but from what I heard, it did not contradict what I had said. We were not directing anyone to do this. It was only if they agreed that they were not in emergency accommodation that there was a recategorisation. I think I have answered all the questions.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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In deference to others, I will be brief. We could spend the afternoon on this but we need to look at LIHAF. The Minister said earlier that he is expecting further calls in respect of the proposals. We should examine what it has delivered up to now. The drawdown has been quite small. Some LIHAF funding has been provided in my area but the idea to drive through affordable housing through opening up that infrastructure is not happening in many areas. Is the Minister reviewing that? He will probably tell me it is being reviewed on a regular basis by his officials.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I think the Deputy's phone is interfering with the microphone.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Tá brón orm. There is a logic to some aspects of it but I refer to the house prices being charged in some areas. This LIHAF money is supposed to be delivering some affordable houses. In terms of some of the grants, however, we are looking at minimal decreases versus market rate. I know some social housing is being provided but I wonder if we are paying for them on top of that. We need to look under the bonnet, so to speak, on this in some more detail.

I have many questions but I will stick to what the Minister said earlier. He mentioned that he will commence legislation for an affordable housing purchase scheme in the coming days. He did not mention that last night in the Dáil when he was responding to motion on affordable housing I tabled. That is fair enough. The Minister is before the committee and he has done it. How does he intend to introduce that? He mentioned regulations and stated that he would sign a commencement order. Will that come through by way of legislation or is he reactivating a scheme as a statutory instrument? How soon does he expect to do that? Will he set a target on delivering affordable purchase units this year? Will we see any this year? I am interested in seeing that. I welcome the Minister's commitment to that because what myself, Deputy Ó Broin, Deputy Barry and others said about the homelessness figures is very important. We need to look at that. When the Minister has his reports in early June we will come back to that but I am interested in the affordable housing piece.

The Minister also mentioned that he intended to establish a national regeneration and development agency which on the face of it appears to be a good idea. I suggested something similar and I was accused by the Minister last night of creating another quango. By the looks of it, he could have voted for our motion earlier today. The Minister has had a road-to-Damascus conversion-----

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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In terms of what I said last night-----

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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-----and I welcome that. We are a broad church. We will take on people, particularly for training and so on. All joking aside, I am particularly interested in the Minister's timeframe for the delivery of an affordable housing scheme. How does he expect to get that up and running?

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I have four brief questions. What is the next process in regard to the rent predictability measure? When will the Minister bring some measure before us? One of the issues left out of that, and I notice it in my constituency, specifically in Arklow, are areas that are on the boundary of a rent pressure zone. There seems to be a surge in the number of people trying to increase the rent because they fear they will be in a rental pressure zone in the next review.

The Minister might give a brief update on the repair and lease scheme. How are the new changes working on it? Has it become more effective than what it was in the previous year?

Regarding the exempted planning regulation, the statutory instrument the Minister of State, Deputy English, brought in, is there any indication yet as to how that is working out? I refer to above the shop premises and vacant commercial properties?

The Minister is trying to streamline the compulsory purchase order, CPO, process. Is there any update on that?

Could I have an update on the town and village renewal scheme? An urban renewal working group was set up and there is €10 million in the scheme for this year. How do local authorities apply for that?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputies for their questions. Regarding LIHAF 1, the drawdown in 2017 was small because I only approved a number of the projects in the second half of last year but they were already moving to the design stage and so on so there will be a larger drawdown this year. In terms of LIHAF as a tool, it was not an affordability one but we are delivering affordability through it. However, I will be straight with the Deputy. When I looked at LIHAF and saw one of the directives under which it was established or on which local authorities would go about negotiating with landowners, I was not too happy about a cost reduction for individual units. I then spoke to some local authorities and told them to bundle those to have a smaller number of units but a greater reduction in price, and we will do it through an affordable purchase scheme. That is what is happening at the moment but we have to recognise as well that in regard to some sites LIHAF is incredibly complex because we are talking about a number of different landowners and a number of different problems in terms of accessibility and so on.

In regard to LIHAF 2, I am looking at that at the moment. Without trying to say too much because it is still under consideration - I have not made a decision yet - when I look at the €25 million we have for the serviced sites fund, which is a pure affordable purchase scheme, the Ó Cualann model, I wonder if it would benefit from having more money moved into it given the time it has taken on some LIHAF sites and given that the serviced sites fund is looking more at those areas where affordability is a critical problem. It is under consideration. I do not like to say anything unless a decision has been made but because the Deputy has asked about it, I cannot not say it. That is what is being considered at the moment. We are about to make a call to local authorities on the serviced sites fund.

In the process of making that call, I will decide what will happen with LIHAF 2. Members should bear in mind that I also want to speak to the local authorities.

On the affordable purchase scheme, I can file a commencement order under the Act that is there already which is what I will do. I can move regulations from that. I do not know why I did not mention that last night, but it is not coincidental. The Deputy is not confirming me into positions that I did not have already.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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It is good. It is positive.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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It was specified when I announced the affordable purchase scheme in January that I would have to sign a commencement order and move with regulations. Each local authority will decide for itself about the management of lists. On the current affordable purchase scheme and its delivery, this is through carve-outs on LIHAF sites, through the serviced sites fund and in the larger sites, such as Poolbeg, there will be an affordable purchase scheme. Through that we have identified a potential 4,000 units but a potential 10,000 units using local authority land only. Our ambition for affordability is much greater than that which is why we looked at things such as a new national regeneration and development agency which was well signalled in September last year. We put out the draft of the national planning framework. It did not just fall into my contribution today on foot of yesterday evening.

Deputy Casey referred to rent pressure zones and the next step. The next steps are happening now with the legislation that is in priority drafting in my Department. We hope to publish it in June. I hope that, working with the joint committee, we can avoid pre-legislative scrutiny or at least do it informally because I would really like to see this legislation enacted before the summer recess. It will strengthen the existing measures and protect tenants, so it is important that we bring it in as quickly as we can.

The quarterly review of the Housing Agency and the work it does on rent pressure zones is ongoing.

On the repair and lease scheme, the number of applications to date are 820, of which 347 have been deemed suitable, and 31 leases have been signed. We brought about the changes to the repair and lease scheme only recently. The five years will show a renewed interest in it. The people who own the property effectively being the responsible landlords will make a big difference in the attractiveness of the scheme.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Are the local authorities promoting it more? Sometimes the information that this scheme was available did not get out there.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The local authorities have been good at using social media, although some are better than others. We have also seen Deputies and Senators promoting the scheme and I have seen leaflets in local authority offices which ask if people have heard of the repair and lease scheme and if people have a property that they cannot afford to get tenanted. All those channels will be helpful. I will receive an update about how the new scheme is bedding down at the June housing summit.

On the exemptions from planning, because they do not need planning permission it is very difficult to get a sense of what is happening in that area unless one sends people out to every village to see what is happening and then ask why it is happening, how recent it was and whether a planning application was submitted or whether there had been an application for a change of use because of the exemptions that were made. Therefore, getting a solid understanding may be difficult in itself because the very fact that it has been exempted from planning permission means that it no longer goes through a formal route for permission.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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If it did it would have to finally go through the stability and fire certification process.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Yes, that is the final stage of the process which we have not yet reached since this has only been introduced.

The Law Reform Commission is leading very good work on streamlining of the compulsory purchase order, CPO, process. Our CPO legislation is in so many different places and some of it predates the State. I have spoken with the Attorney General about flexing CPO legislation to ensure we get the most out of it. That work is ongoing. The streamlining is a longer process and my Department is involved in though not leading it.

The Deputy asked about the urban renewal scheme. There is €50 million over the period to 2021. There is €10 million in 2018. We will do a call for proposals with local authorities in the third quarter. We will do a call for proposals on the urban renewal fund under Project Ireland 2040, which is the applicable fund where there is a population of more than 10,000. We will do a call for that in coming weeks. It is a much larger fund. It is a €2 billion commitment until 2027. We will move the call for that soon. There will also be a separate call from the Department of Rural and Community Development. This fund is not only for local authorities but also community groups and other bodies and will see funding being announced which will have a competitive bid-based application process. Deputies, Senators or councillors may know of a project in their area that could benefit from this funding for renewal, and they do not have to be something large like a theatre but can be small improvements that can make a difference to the heart of a village. We will open the call for applications and make people aware of the funding. We think it will make a big difference and align well with things such as urban regeneration, the repair and lease scheme, above-shop redevelopment and the compact growth principle that is so central to Project Ireland 2040.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I apologise to Senator Murnane O'Connor who I had intended to call before Deputy Casey. I call the Senator and then Deputy Barry.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail)
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Is the repair and lease scheme operating in all local authorities now? My understanding is that the uptake is not as good as it should be because of the criteria that must be met. I mentioned the criteria that were causing trouble last time, which is a concern.

The Minister has sought a report on vacant properties from local authorities. Has he said to each local authority that there is a timescale on the funding? It concerns me that the Minister has said today that funding is not a problem. In my home town, there are people in receipt of the housing assistance payment, HAP, and rental accommodation scheme, RAS, and others applying for mortgages, and they are worried. If they are in receipt of HAP and the house they are renting is sold, they are told to find somewhere else but they cannot find something in their budget. Will the Minister examine the cap for Carlow County Council? I also ask him to examine rent pressure zones. I want everything to be accountable. It should be across all the local authorities, that is important.

There has been an increase in mortgage approvals since the new proposals. Borrowers can have a 90% mortgage and 10% deposit. However, the timescale is a problem. The number of people applying for mortgages in my own area has doubled. I have made representations for many of them. By the time applicants have all the information such as the bank statements, wage slips and so on, they have to be submitted and processed, then one must go to the underwriter, and if that fails the application must return to the credit committee. We are not a bank. There are people who are looking for a mortgage from their local authority and waiting so long that they are not even getting them, because the houses they were looking at have been sold. It is a good system, I am not saying that it is not. It is great that there is a mortgage and the Minister has changed the criteria but can he speed it up so that applicants are not waiting for periods of eight months or a year?

Has the Minister changed the tenant purchase scheme?

I want to compliment the Minister. Carlow County Council got its grants for elderly people and so on, and received a 3% increase. I thank him for that. However, I have concerns. The Minister has said of approved housing bodies, AHBs:

Over the lifetime of Rebuilding Ireland, approximately one third of delivery is to be secured through AHBs. Partnerships between AHBs and local authorities have been delivering well over the first two years of Rebuilding Ireland.

What is the criteria for this? In my years working in local authorities, we never had so many bodies giving out so many houses through the AHBs. I know that the Department has to work from the council lists but it seems to be a different scheme. Does the Department have a programme in place through which the AHBs work with local authorities, so that we might know what the criteria is? I do not know what the criteria are. There is no programme in place. I have been monitoring this in recent months. Can the Minister put something in place? I know that a successful applicant must be on the local authority housing list. This plays such a major part in Rebuilding Ireland and these AHBs have a great deal of funding and have been buying many houses for which I must compliment them so we can have some criteria to work with.

I meant to say that I spent five years as chair, not ten. I put ten years on myself. The other thing is that I have never seen so much uncertainty in my time as either a councillor or a Senator. There is a fear of the unknown, a fear that when one is in a house, one might lose it and a fear of not being able to get a mortgage. There are also my fears for the homeless. The Minister is saying that there is so much funding. Will he let everybody know what is happening? I do not want to read in the newspaper next week that he has announced another programme about which I do not know. In such instances, I have to tell people that I am sorry but that it is the first I have heard of the matter. Can the Minister address the committee first? Can he reassure us that nobody has to worry because he has the funding? People are worried. In my area, we have two fabulous institutes of third-level education, which means that a lot of our housing is rented to students. That is fine; it happens. The Minister needs to address the lack of supply, the difficulties of people trying to find houses and the insecurity individuals feel when they do not know what is down the line. However, there is also one other thing. There are 31 local authorities and they need to have the same policies across the board because what is working for one is not working for another. As a Senator, it is very hard to tell people that something can be obtained in another local authority area but not in theirs. That is unacceptable. I thank the Minister for the increase in the grant.

Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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I have two questions. The first relates to rent pressure zones and the question of evictions. There is a 4% cap but, as we all know, there are landlords who are exploiting a loophole to get around that 4% cap. They are using the loophole of so-called substantial refurbishment as a way to jack up rents way beyond the 4%, evicting people in the process. One such example, of which the Minister will be aware, is the case of the residents of the Leeside Apartments in Cork. Some 20 low-income families are currently facing eviction at the hands of a vulture fund. The vulture fund is engaged in a substantial refurbishment of the complex and is using it as an excuse to get people out the door. The agenda, however, is to jack up rents, possibly going as far as to double them. At least ten of these cases are currently before the Residential Tenancies Board. The residents and their supporters in the city, who are many, sincerely hope that the board will rule in favour of the residents and against the notices to quit and that the guidelines handed down late last year will assist the board in doing so. The Minister stated in the Dáil that if the guidelines are not sufficient, he would be in favour of the introduction of legislation which would increase protection for tenants in this situation. I have two questions on that. First, can the Minister provide a little more detail about the character of that legislation? Second, should there be a need for such legislation to be introduced - although I believe it is already necessary - on the basis of a negative ruling, is the Minister in a position to give an undertaking that he will bring in legislation in such a way as to protect those particular residents so that they are not thrown to the wolves and told that it is too late and that nothing can be done at this stage?

My second question relates to HAP. The current position is that if an individual or household receives HAP, his, her or their name is removed from the local authority housing waiting list. They are kept on the transfer list but the Minister and I know that the transfer list moves very slowly, even more slowly than the housing waiting lists. It is understandable that a significant number of families resist accepting HAP because they do not want their names to be taken off the housing waiting list and want to hold out for local authority housing rather than being left in private rented accommodation for ever or at least for a long time. It is also the experience of public representatives and councillors that a significant portion of people who are given HAP return to homelessness because landlords terminate agreements and move on, perhaps when they feel they can make more money. People are made homeless again. As part of this review, is the Minister prepared to change the position whereby HAP recipients are taken off housing waiting lists in order to allow them to remain on local authority waiting lists and to receive genuine social housing as opposed to HAP, which we all know is not the real deal?

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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As we are running short on time, we will take Deputy Boyd Barrett. he will be the final member to speak.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I echo the call made by the previous speaker. I also raised that issue a couple of weeks ago and I really think the Minister has to take that action. It is not right to pretend that HAP is a permanent housing solution when it is not. Some people are satisfied with HAP. If they are happy to be off the list, that is fair enough. However, it is not right to take people off the housing waiting list compulsorily when they have been on it for ten or 15 years and to put them into what are, in many cases, precarious situations. In some cases people have been through two or three accommodations under RAS and HAP. They have been in and out and in and out. To lose their place on the list is just not acceptable. Quite frankly, it is another form of manipulation of the figures. I ask the Minister to take the action Deputy Barry has suggested.

On the cases I mentioned to the Minister, I will pass on the individuals' details. I thank Ms Hurley, who is beside the Minister, for contacting me. I will pass on the details of those cases. I reiterate, and ask for a response on, the issue of increasing the number of proactive outreach teams to go out and physically find empty properties. I could walk the Minister around Dún Laoghaire and point him to empty buildings. If we could get those buildings into use we would make a big difference. There is no reason we could not do that if the staff and resources were provided for local authorities. We could start going around and checking everything that is available. Teams could be physically walking around and looking at the empty properties. There could be a line which people could call if they see such properties. I am sure everybody here gets calls asking why certain properties are sitting empty. We could find and identify these things. We should then proactively approach the owners and find out what is going on. We should see whether we can get them into use. Some we could get into use just by doing that, in other cases we may need new legislation on compulsorily legislation or other measures. Whatever we need to do, we need to get those properties in use. I would like a response on that.

On the local issue of the Shanganagh development and without pointing fingers, in my opinion there is politics going on which is slowing this down. I ask that we move beyond the politics. The way to stop the ping pong between Departments and the councils - with political parties in between - is to get the representatives from all the parties on the council, local Deputies and the officials from the Minister's Department and those from the local authority who actually make the decisions together in a room and go through the issues and blockages that need to be overcome in order to get work on that site moving. We need to know where the problem lies. Everybody is blaming everybody else. That could be resolved if we could get people together in the room. Indeed, Senators could also be involved. One of them is present at this meeting. There is no doubt, and no room for politicking, about it: we have to get straight answers from all concerned as to what is going on, what the problems are and how we can overcome them. That is a direct appeal. We could do that.

I would not mind it if also on the agenda for that meeting was the issue of affordable housing, what affordability will actually mean in our area and how we are going to deliver affordable housing. I do not really see how we are going to deliver affordable housing because of the way the market is at present. We are supposed to be having it in Cherrywood and possibly in Shanganagh but there are real questions about how that is actually going to happen. I am making a serious solution-oriented appeal not to be politicking with the issue but to actually go through the nuts and bolts of how we can make that happen.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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On that point, it is not that I am disagreeing with the Deputy but I want to acknowledge that the Minister did actually come out to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to address all 40 councillors, the executive and the county manager on the matter of housing a month or two ago.

There is ongoing communication on that issue and I just wanted to reference that.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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It was a very noisy meeting, if I remember correctly. There was noise outside and I could not quite hear what was said.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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Yes, there was a little bit of noise outside the window.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senators and Deputies for the questions. The repair and lease scheme is available in all local authorities. The criteria were reviewed, and the main changes were that it was reduced from ten years to five years at 92% of market rate because the owner is going to continue to be a landlord; and we increased the money available to those who had a number of properties so that it was not so rigid. The Senator is correct; the uptake was not as good as it should have been. In fact, it was terrible. However, we hope that this review will improve things. We have to wait and see if it actually has. In Rebuilding Ireland there are a large number of policy interventions. Some will work, and work very well, and immediately, such as the fast-track planning process. Others will not work, such as repair and lease, so they have to be re-examined and tried again.

There are vacancy teams in each local authority, and there was a deadline of the end of last year for the major local authorities to get out and do that work. At the housing summit in January we started to get feedback on what we would consider the true levels of vacancy in those areas. The accuracy of numbers, as Senator Boyhan pointed out, is a different piece of work that is ongoing at the CSO. We are trying to get a different definition of vacancy which does not include houses that are between lettings and rentals so that we are all working from similar numbers. We are looking at bands and issues around inter-authority movement. That issue was raised with me by the Taoiseach recently.

The Rebuilding Ireland home loan is very popular because it is a fixed rate mortgage for 30 years. We want to see more people offering that, not just the local authorities. I had a meeting recently with the key players because I realised that certain parts of the process were not moving as expeditiously as we wanted them to. We must realise that a mortgage is the biggest purchase a person makes in his or her life, and we have to make sure that all of the correct procedures are followed through. We also have to make sure that local authorities are not making decisions that are imprudent, in terms of putting debt on a person that they will not be able to manage.There have to be robust checks and balances, but they do not have to take forever. We are talking about a six week turnaround. The Housing Agency is dealing very quickly with the complete applications that are coming to it. Of course, the final decision is for the credit committee in the local authority.

The tenant purchase scheme is under review at the moment; the Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Community and Local Government, Deputy English, is looking into that.

I thank Senator Murnane O'Connor for her comments about the increase in the grant.

Local authorities manage the lists for housing body tenancies. The housing bodies are doing a fantastic piece of work, and we want to see them doing more. It is one of the changes that has come about over the last number of years that was not there previously. It is a delivery mechanism that works just as well as local authorities; we treat them the same when we talk about build.

There is uncertainty at the moment in our country when it comes to housing. It is there for renters, the elderly and young couples. This is caused by under-supply, which is caused not just by the fact that houses were not being built but by the increasing pressures of a successful economy. There are more than 100,000 returning emigrants, and it is fantastic to see sons and daughters coming home. We have almost full employment. However, those factors put an additional pressure on our housing supply. We are not in a stable or steady state at the moment. Rebuilding Ireland is about getting us back to a steady state. Every indicator we have tells us that we are getting there more quickly than we had anticipated but we have to keep driving that. We cannot take our eye off the ball or our foot off the pedal for one second.

There is an argument to be made on the issue of policy and flexibility. One member of the committee says that we are centralising powers and decision-making in the Department and another says we are not giving enough power to local authorities, then complains that his or her local authority is doing or is not doing what the Department tells them they should be doing. If Senator Murnane O'Connor feels that her local authority is not implementing something in the way it should be she should let me know and we will get to the truth of the matter. Deputies come to me every week with issues on the Rebuilding Ireland home loan where they feel that an applicant in their area has not been treated according to the guidance that is on the website from the Housing Finance Agency, or they feel that a local authority is applying a policy from the Department in a particular way where it knows that another local authority has done it differently. They want to know how that is possible and why their own local authority cannot act in the same way. We look at each issue individually. If the local authority is wrong we can untie that knot. If we believe it is a bigger problem than that we can issue a circular to give updated guidance on what the policy is, depending on the extent of the problem. I can only work on the intelligence I receive from the members of the committee.

Deputy Barry mentioned the rent pressure zones. Guidance was issued on this by the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB. I have no problem putting it in legislation if that has to be done. It may be necessary, depending on the outcome of certain cases that are before the RTB, and we are monitoring developments very closely. Even if it is not necessary due to those decisions it might be something we decide is prudent to proceed with, but I have to see what the substance of the decisions is before I know what kind of amendment we might be looking at. Any change in the law would not apply retrospectively.

On the issue of the housing assistance payment, HAP, and people coming off the housing list, I mentioned earlier that I accept that more can be done with the transfer list. It is not being used effectively in some areas, so we want to do more. A report was issued which provides a breakdown of people exiting tenancies in HAP and the various reasons they did so. I know that Deputies Ó Broin and Boyd Barrett have seen this report, but perhaps Deputy Barry has not. For example, 2,429 of the 5,938 were tenant-led exits; 1,105 were exits into other forms of social housing; 793 were compliance exits - and there is a breakdown of what those compliance reasons might be, including non-payment of rent - and 1,612 were landlord exits. We have been trying, as part of the new quarterly reporting, to move away from publishing big documents which needed a team to constantly produce it, to more targeted and meaningful types of reporting on a quarterly basis so that people can understand what is actually happening in terms of the numbers.

In a perfect world we would not have to comment on individual cases, but the policy measures we have in place are designed to help the largest amount of people possible. They will not always be able to help everyone, and that is why we sometimes have to work on a case by case basis. It is very helpful when Deputies accompany people, particularly when it does have a meaningful impact on the person concerned. There is a vacant unit team in Dún Laoghaire which has done work on this; it reported what it believed the true level of vacancy in its local authority was at the housing summit. After this meeting I will ask it what it has done with the vacancy information it gathered and how many times it has processed or issued a compulsory purchase order, CPO, to get that vacant stock back into use.

The website www.vacanthomes.ie is being led by the Mayo County Council. It is a national project. A person travelling to work who has passed a house for the last ten years can stop and take a picture of it. The property will be geo-located, a message will go to the local authority and the vacancy team will go out and inspect it. We have pushed www.vacanthomes.ie in public with advertising, statements and different events. It exists, and it is a very good resource. I had an update on the number of units reported by the public at the last housing summit and will get a further update on that at the next housing summit.

The Department has to finish the review of the Shanganagh proposal. If it is good we will green-light it without delay. If it is not good we will look at the suggestion made about sitting down in a room to discuss why we do not have a solution to this. We are ready to go. We have the plan from the local authority; let us see if it can be progressed. I will not hesitate to give it the green light if possible, but if I cannot I will sit down and talk about what can be done with it.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Student accommodation is increasing massively. There is a lack of clarity as to whether student licences are covered by the Residential Tenancies Act or not. Can the Minister provide any clarity on that matter? If it is the view of the Minister or the Attorney General that they are not covered is it something he will look at including in the upcoming Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Bill?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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We are looking at that issue at the moment. A number of meetings have taken place between myself and the Department of Education and Skills. We have also met the RTB. We will establish what the facts are around these arrangements and whether they are or are not covered by the rent pressure zone legislation. If they are not we will see what we can do to address it.

We will see what we can do to address that. I will be working off the advice of the Department of Education and Skills, which is the lead Department when it comes to student housing. We are essentially at one on this.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Government's legislation is the Residential Tenancies Act. Is that something the Minister can clarify with the Attorney General to see if students' nine month licences would be covered as tenancies under that Act? That is really the Minister's responsibility, not that of the Department of Education and Skills.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Is that a change in legislation that is coming?

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The RTB says that it is not clear whether or not the Residential Tenancies Act would include nine-month student licences as tenancies. Is there a way for the Minister, via the Attorney General, to clarify the position in order that we would know whether additional legislation is required?

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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That work is being done at the moment with the Department of Education and Skills. Although the Act is under my Department, the Department of Education and Skills has responsibility for student housing. A meeting at which we asked what the situation is and spoke to the RTB has already taken place. We are working on the matter. I am waiting for a report to come back and I will act on foot it. If an amendment is needed, we have a vehicle coming for it in June.

Maria Bailey (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister, Ms Mary Hurley, Mr. John McCarthy and Mr. David Walsh for attending and for their ongoing engagement with the committee. To give members a heads-up, we will probably be able to facilitate the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Bill at 9 a.m. before next Thursday's meeting. We will email members to ensure that works. I thank members for staying with us and for the robust exchanges during the meeting.