Mr. Eddie Taaffe:

I thank the Deputy for his questions. On the topic of re-let times, different local authorities approach re-lets differently. Some will take the opportunity to carry out significant works to a property because they might be dealing with older housing stock. It might be the first time they have had a chance to do significant works in ten or 20 years. It also depends on the age of the housing stock they are getting back and the ability to employ a contractor to do the work quickly, that is, it depends on the capacity of the local construction sector as well. Some local authorities will also take the opportunity to do a deep-energy retrofit while the house is empty. This could possibly add from six to eight weeks to a re-let time. Because the works are so invasive, the only opportunity they get to do this kind of work is when the house is empty. When the house is re-let it effectively comes back as a brand-new house with a B rating and a much lower energy cost. This definitely impacts on the re-let times.

Some but not all local authorities have choice-based letting, which speeds up the re-let process. More local authorities are moving to choice-based letting. There is very strong evidence that this speeds things up. For those authorities that are not moving to this method, we still would have seen a relatively high refusal rate before choice-based letting came in. The average refusal rate was about one in four. That delays the process as well. Local authorities are focused on that and they all will be moving to choice-based letting to speed things up in the future.

One important statistic is worth mentioning. Local authorities appreciate that they need to focus on re-let times and make them as short as possible. According to the last published data from the National Oversight and Audit Commission, NOAC, the overall vacancy rate in social housing nationally at the end of 2023 was 2.8%. While on the face of it the re-let times appear to be lengthy in some local authorities, the actual vacancy rate is lower in social housing than it is in the wider housing stock, which varies from 4% to 5%. If anything, social housing has a greater occupancy rate.

On the development plans, yes, local authorities are preparing to re-examine their development plans based on the new population figures. This variation process will be initiated as soon as the new figures are published by the Minister and the Department. Local authorities are already preparing and looking at lands and looking at their zonings to prepare for that. It will add to the delivery because it will give those wishing to provide housing more choice in respect of what lands they can apply for planning permission on. As I said, that is subject to those lands being serviced, which I will come to in a minute. Because it will open up more lands for development, it will give greater choice. It can only assist in the delivery of houses. Councils are up for the challenge and task between now and the end of the year.

On the issues around servicing, generally speaking our main towns are well serviced for water and wastewater. It is in the smaller towns and villages around the country that there are capacity constraints. There are landowners and developers who would like to build in those towns and more importantly, people would like to live in those towns but because of the capacity constraints, they are not able to. Most of the capacity constraints relate to wastewater. Water is an easier fix, so to speak, and electricity supply is not as constraining an issue around the country as is wastewater. Wastewater is the primary constraint in towns in the middle layer.

On affordable housing, under the original affordable housing plan I think only 18 local authorities were given access to the affordable housing fund. This is the State-funded mechanism for making houses affordable. The other local authorities were not given a target and initially were not given access to the affordable housing fund because they were not deemed to have a housing affordability issue. That has subsequently changed and now all local authorities can access the fund. That is the reason some local authorities have come later in the day to affordable housing when compared to others. The lag in the beginning caused this but that has been corrected now.

Local authorities have been out of affordable housing for a number of years. It takes us a while to build up teams and expertise. Local authorities like my own are partnering in the first instance with housing providers to provide housing. We give them the funding and they provide the affordable housing. It has taken us a while to persuade and get those partnerships up and running but they are there now. That has given us time to deliver our own direct build affordable housing schemes, which we are delivering on now. It has taken a while to get used to it. It is something new for all stakeholders to get up to speed on and comfortable with, but there is now a strong pipeline of affordable housing in local authorities. In my own case in Wexford, we are bringing larger schemes of mixed-tenure housing - social and affordable - all together in one planning process at scale to meet affordable housing needs.