Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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There is no doubt but that the two sovereign funds we are establishing on foot of the budget will go a long way to ensuring we have multi-annual funding even in a cyclical downturn. I accept all that. Yet, within the Department itself, there is the Housing Agency and there are housing authorities in the local authorities. The Department funds the local authorities. Was there sufficient communication between the local authorities and the Department over that period to identify the blockages? Any councillor in the country could have told you in 2016 or 2017 that they were not getting enough money and did not have the ability to deliver mixed sites. Moreover, local authorities did not want to build large-scale social housing developments again because that does not provide a good community. I wonder where the gap is between the local authorities and the Department.