Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 20 May 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Challenges Relating to the Delivery of Housing: County and City Management Association
2:00 am
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Stanley mentioned the standard designs. Whether these fit into the MMC model might need to be looked at.
In the context of cost rental, I hear what Mr. Taaffe had to say on the borrowing risks and the caution in the local authorities. These need to be addressed. Mr. Taaffe has explained this fairly well to us.
With regard to the ambition in the programme for Government for 12,000 units of social housing, I have a question and statement. Local authorities, by not building themselves, are taking from private capacity. If a developer comes to a local authority with permission and states a turnkey development can be done, it means the houses will not be available for private purchase. That is happening a lot. For the 12,000 to be achieved, I would like to see more local authorities getting back into the business of building houses on a large scale rather than doing more deals with private developers. The latter takes from private capacity. Mr. Taaffe might refer to that.
My final point is on consistency across local authority areas. Mr. Taaffe mentioned that choice-based letting is not applicable in all local authorities. A rightsizing scheme features in only some local authorities. What is Mr. Taaffe's opinion on this? Should we try to roll out a rightsizing scheme across the board?