Mr. Eddie Taaffe:

The biggest constraints are the availability of land and the availability of and funding for staff for local authorities to progress those projects on that land. The CCMA has a twofold function when it comes to housing. Through the housing committee and the formulation of policy and plans as a stakeholder, we feed into the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The CCMA and the Department fund the housing delivery co-ordination office that is housed in the Local Government Management Agency. This team co-ordinates the activity of the 31 local authorities in terms of social and affordable housing, shares best practice, gathers data on our housing projects and land banks, co-ordinates the programme and activity and acts as a single point of contact on issues for the Department and bodies like the ESB and Uisce Éireann.

There are two funding constraints for local authorities. The first one concerns the ability of local authorities to borrow for cost rental. What is equally important with cost rental is the fact that because of the volume of capital that could be tied up in cost rental and the fact that the housing market has a certain level of uncertainty, local authorities require some sort of backstop when it comes to that borrowing. If rents fall and the income stream on which their borrowing is based falls away, this could have serious financial implications for local authorities. For this reason, we need to have an understanding of what the safety net is for local authorities when it comes to that borrowing. The other issue for us is the funding of significant extra staff resources to see that step change and that significant increase in delivery.

On the innovative funding models, one thing we hear from the private sector concerns the interest rates charged to house builders for their projects. I have heard of developers being quoted rates that are a multiple of the ECB rate or what one would get if one left one's money on deposit in the bank. This seems to be adding significant extra costs to the cost of providing houses and in some cases is making schemes unviable. If we are looking at innovative funding models, it is about making finance available to house builders to allow them to be as competitive, as cost-effective and, let us be blunt about it, as cheap as possible so that those costs are not passed to the cost of delivering housing.

Regarding delays in planning, local authorities use the Part 8 process, which is a statutory process. Generally speaking, there are no delays. It works very well. It is a partnership approach between council officials and councillors on getting schemes through Part 8. With regard to private sector planning applications, local authorities are on a statutory timeframe so it is a very predictable timeframe. Where planning can come unstuck is where there are appeals to An Bord Pleanála or judicial reviews. However, under the new Planning and Development Act, an Coimisiún Pleanála will have statutory timeframes for considering appeals so the issue of timeframes should be addressed under the Planning and Development Act as that is rolled out.

There is a lot of public-private collaboration where we partner with developers. The next stage for delivery of local authority on local authority-owned land is the move towards development under licence. Some local authorities have led the way on that and it is a very efficient way of delivering housing utilising private sector collaboration but still delivering public housing on public land.

Regarding future-proofing housing policy, my opinion is that if we want a sustainable housing supply irrespective of what tenure it is, if we control land and the availability of land to people who want to build houses and if we control it being fed into the market for house constructors, we control the supply of housing. At the moment, we do not have effective State levers to control that supply of land and get it built on and serviced. This is the key issue for future housing policy.

The vacant homes grant has been successful. The reason the payouts are quite low is probably that it takes time to get a builder, get the works done and get the claim in so the payout is the very last part of the process. However, the take-up has been significant and there have been some fantastic projects around the country. It is working and is to be welcomed. It is a relatively new scheme and these things take a while to get to the end point. By the time someone has bought a property, engaged the builder, done the works and made the claim, it can be quite a period but the scheme is hugely successful. I am sure any issues can be ironed out with local authorities.