Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 26 January 2023

Public Accounts Committee

Appropriation Accounts 2021
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Local Government Fund Account 2021
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 4: Re-allocation of Voted Funds
Chapter 6: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities
Chapter 7: The Housing Agency’s Revolving Acquisition Fund

9:30 am

Photo of Verona MurphyVerona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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Mr. Doyle mentioned density. Our planning policy is for high density, which means that the typologies we get from our planning policy are for apartments or terraced housing. We do not get three-bed semis and we do not get two-bed housing with front and back gardens, which is what people want. Instead, we are spending the taxpayers' money on what they do not want. However, because the developer cannot build them viably, Mr. Doyle spends the taxpayers' money buying them.

Earlier, I heard Mr. Doyle say that some 9,000 units of social housing is being provided. More than 5,000 of them were apartments. Regarding that 5,000, the deferential in money to the taxpayer that would have provided two-bed houses is €1 billion and maybe more. We would have actually gotten more than 6,000 two-bed houses with front and back gardens that will not become ghettos in the future. Would the Secretary General call that value for money?