Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for his questions, which covered a couple of different areas. I will start with the Deputy's first and last point around the cap and the move from €2 million to €6 million. To be able to raise that cap we would require a derogation from the public spending code from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. We would need to seek that derogation. I have looked at this in a lot of detail because we discussed it last year when we were talking about the budget for this year, and I believe the benefits of such a move are questionable. We have a 59-week process now within the Department where we are working with local authorities to get housing from local authorities approved so they can get on site to start building. Raising the threshold from €2 million to €6 million would perhaps save six to eight weeks. Six to eight weeks is not nothing but in return for that time saving we would lose oversight of some 44% of the capital spend on housing nationally. Obviously there are risks in that when we consider the loss of oversight and the uncertainty around value for money. There is also the more worrying problem that when the projects come to us for final approval, which they would have to, if they had made mistakes along the way, we would not have seen them. At that point we might have to refuse, which would mean projects would have to go right back to the start. Local authority projects have been brought forward previously where the individual home to be built might be at a cost of €750,000 based on how they inspect it. In that kind of a situation, if we had not been keeping an eye through each of the stages we would be telling them to go right back to the beginning. That would mean the shortened six to eight weeks timeline would need to go right back to the beginning again. We have examined this and it would require a derogation from the public spending code from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Based on that kind of information, and I can give the Deputy further detail on it, I am not sure that either Department will be recommending going forward with that. The benefits versus the risks are questionable.

I will now turn to the build out this year, what we will build and will tear out lease and acquisition from that. The target is at least 6,200. I did a review with local authorities in the summer and have had a number of engagements on this. I will meet with the County and City Management Association, CCMA, again tomorrow. So far our targets are looking good with regard to the pure build number. The Deputy referred to the Housing Agency and acquisitions. The Housing Agency is leading on acquisitions from bank-led vacancies. These are homes that are vacant because the banks have them vacant.