Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 11 December 2018

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Estimates for Public Services 2018
Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government (Supplementary)

6:30 pm

Photo of Eoghan MurphyEoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I will start with the last question first. The quarter 3 report is imminent, by which I mean it is on my desk. As soon as I leave this meeting I will send it to the joint committee once I have signed off on it. We can go into more detail on this tomorrow. It will show increased delivery in quarter 3. As we saw in 2017 we will see that the programme for delivery escalates into quarter 3 and will escalate again into quarter 4. While, obviously, it will not show quarter 4, from the work in the Department's housing unit we have a fair idea of what we can expect to be delivered in quarter 4.

The Deputy asked where that €60 million would go. As noted in the note the Deputy received, we have had essentially a doubling of the number of schemes we now have in this pipeline. That is housing at every stage - coming through for approval, design, planning etc. Part of the €60 million that will be spent this year will be spent on housing that will be delivered next year. It is no secret to the committee at this point that leasing has not performed as we would have liked it to have performed. While that €60 million will go towards build for next year, it will also go towards acquisitions for this year by housing bodies where they see there is stock they should acquire to meet the needs they need to meet. It will also go to acquisitions by local authorities where they see value for money. I am talking typically about counties outside Dublin. There will be acquisitions coming from some bank portfolios where we thought it would be important to bring this back into the stock for social housing. That is primarily where that €60 million will go.

The €60 million for emergency accommodation will go across a range of things. Some of the single emergency accommodation coming online at the moment involves refurbishment for some buildings to provide better heating systems etc. It will also provide for some non-permanent beds. In a location such as Kerdiffstown we plan having a standing emergency facility that gets ramped up or down depending on what is happening. That could be an extreme weather event or contingency for a particular event such as the papal visit - even though it proved unnecessary - or even a devastating accident or other incident that would require emergency facilities. Those moneys will go into a facility that will be used on an off, and into capital works on family hubs.

It is not just the 203 permanent beds or the 130 emergency beds; it is also family hubs that are being programmed but have not come online yet. With some of the family hubs we are trying to get up and running we have fallen foul of a planning condition, fire regulation etc. We will have a family hub programme, but some of the family hubs we plan do not always come online because events mean they fall out of the mix and we need to look for others.

We might as well be upfront in saying we do not publish in advance the locations of emergency accommodation because sometimes, unfortunately, the local community is not receptive.