Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We have no apologies. I advise members of the constitutional requirement that members must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in meetings.

Today the select committee is required to consider the Revised Estimates in respect of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage – Vote 34; Tailte Éireann – Vote 16; and the Electoral Commission – Vote 23. I welcome the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy James Browne, and his officials to the meeting. We appreciate the comprehensive briefing material provided by the Minister’s Department in respect of today’s discussion. This has been circulated to members.

Before we start, I will explain some limitations to parliamentary privileges and the practice of the Houses regarding references witnesses may make to another person in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

I invite the Minister, Deputy Browne, to make is opening comments on the Revised Estimates.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the opportunity to discuss with the committee my Department’s Estimate for 2025, as well as the Votes for Tailte Éireann and An Coimisiún Toghcháin, which are also under the aegis of my Department.

I am joined by officials from my Department and a briefing has been provided to the committee in advance, so I will keep these remarks brief, focusing on critical areas of expenditure.

Overall, the Estimate for Vote 34 before the committee totals €8.6 billion for the year and comprises €3.3 billion in current funding and nearly €5.3 billion in capital funding. Additionally, there is €151 million in proceeds from the local property tax, meaning nearly some €8.8 billion in funds will be managed across Vote 34 this year. In addition to this, the total gross provision for Táilte Éireann in 2025 is nearly €91.2 million and for An Coimisiún Toghcháin is €11.8 million. I will now take the committee through the key areas of expenditure for 2025.

The year 2025 will see continued record investment in housing. Overall, almost €6.8 billion in capital funding is being provided through a combiantion of Exchequer resources, investment by the Land Development Agency, LDA, and lending by the Housing Finance Agency. This includes the additonal capital funding agreed by the Government earlier this year for the delivery of new social, affordable and cost-rental homes. In 2025, a targeted 28,000 households will have their housing needs met, with the main focus of capital investment being on the accelerated delivery of more than 12,000 new social homes. The affordable housing delivery target for 2025 is 6,400 and a strong pipeline is now in place. We will continue to build on the progress achieved under Housing for All, with more than 37,400 homes and more than 14,500 affordable housing solutions delivered to the end of Q1 2025.

The capital investment will be supplemented by €1.65 billion to support a range of current funded housing programmes, including support for 10,000 new tenancies through the housing assistance payment and the rental accommodation scheme. Supporting individuals and families facing homelessness is a key priority for the Government. This 2025 Estimate provides €328 million in funding for homelessness services, including the provision of emergency accommodation and supports that households require to exit emergency accommodation to a tenancy or to prevent them from entering emergency accommodation. This funding will also allow for planned investment in homelessness capital programmes.

Funding for housing this year will also address a broader range of critical areas, including the specific housing needs of people with a disability and older people, initiatives to address vacancy and better utilisation of existing stock, remediation of defective homes and a provision of supports to maintain people in their homes through retrofitting measures and adaptation works.

My Department has made substantial progress in how we manage our water quality and services, which continue to undergo significant reform in the approach to the delivery of water services and the promotion of wider environmental protection. In 2025, my Department has provided over €1.7 billion to Uisce Éireann for the delivery of water services. This includes €983 million in capital to allow it to continue its capital investment programme to modernise and expand the capacity of Ireland's water infrastructure. This investment will help to raise network capacities, increase water quality and bring us closer to compliance with European directives. Our investment will also help to ensure Uisce Éireann can support the delivery of the Government's housing objectives, with additional actions being undertaken to support housing connections to public water services. My Department also continues to invest directly in rural water services through the rural water programme by allocating more than €67 million in 2025.

I will now turn to local government. Some €69 million has been allocated to support fire services in 2025, including €27 million in capital funding to support the investment in fire services infrastructure, front-line emergency fees and necessary equipment and building on the progress made to date. This underpins my Department's continued commitment to our fire services. Furthermore, on the vital local government sector, the Government will be making a contribution of €590 million to support local authorities in their work in 2025 through the local government fund.

Planning reform remains a key area of focus for the Government in 2025, with more than €280 million being provided via this Estimate. This includes the provision of more than €185 million for the urban regeneration and developement fund, URDF, for key regeneration and rejuvenation projects. Recognising the demands on planning authorities, funding is also being provided to support the filling of additional posts in the local authority planning service and An Bord Pleanála.

More than €223 million is being provided via this Estimate to programme F, heritage. This investment includes the provision of more than €70 million for the National Parks and Wildlife Service, €47 million for Waterways Ireland and more than €25 million for built heritage services. In addition, €42 million is being provided via the shared island fund for the Narrow Water Bridge project. Just over €62 million will be provided to Met Éireann, enabling the provision of a range of meteorological services to customers.

I have kept my remarks as brief as possible and I look forward to engaging with the committee this evening.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for his statement. I now invite members to discuss the Estimates. I remind members participating remotely to raise their hand and cancel it when they have spoken, if they are contributing online.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Since we have a bit more time, it might be better to give members more than the five or seven minutes.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I am well aware of this and was going to propose ten minutes. When people do not give apologies, we do not know who is going to be here so it is hard to judge.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Deputy Gould will be here but Senator McCormack obviously will not as she is a Senator.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I propose ten minutes for each speaker. Deputy McGrath is first.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Chair, the Minister and his officials.

I will focus on housing elements at the outset. The figure €6.8 billion is a significant sum without question and it puts us very high across Europe with regard to our expenditure on housing. However, we are in an emergency. The Minister has said he is treating the housing crisis as an emergency and I very much welcome that.

I hear from those in the sector that schemes are not being progressed through the Department as quickly as they were and that funding constraints appear to be biting in the context of schemes being greenlit. I would like commentary on that. We are in an emergency and we want to see schemes progress. We speak at length about other challenges in infrastructural deficits and so on but these schemes are ready to go and are through planning permission. Everything is ready but for some reason, they seem to be stuck. The €6.8 million clearly is not sufficient. How much money do we need to progress the scale of development we need to see? I am speaking about publicly funded development. I would like some feedback on that issue of schemes not progressing as quickly as they should or possibly not progressing at all due to funding constraints.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy McGrath for his questions. The Department of housing is now spending approximately 30% of all capital funding, which is close to about €1 in every €3 of all capital funding that has been made available by the Government. Obviously, there is only a certain amount of funding and this has to be split between schools, hospitals, transport and other important areas. The Deputy is certainly right in that I am treating this as a housing emergency. The total Exchequer funding being made available for the delivery of the housing programme is more than €5.5 billion, comprising €3.9 billion in capital funding and €1.65 billion in current funding. The capital funding provision of €3.9 billion is being supplemented by Land Development Agency investment of €1.25 billion and Housing Finance Agency lending of a further €1.65 billion, resulting in overall capital provision of €6.8 billion. As I said, in 2025, more than 28,000 additional households will have their housing needs met through social and affordable housing.

Substantial funding is being made available for housing. I am certainly treating it as an emergency. We are raising funding as quickly as we can. Any application that comes in does require consideration as to whether it meets the needs of what we are looking for in terms of its location and how it is being financed, whether it is viable and how quickly it can be delivered. We invite applications, so the mere application via a body seeking funding does not guarantee it funding. We do have to live within our budget at the same time. As I said, we are providing record funding towards housing delivery.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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With regard to the national development plan, NDP, review, where would the Minister like to see the funding go for meeting the challenges we have?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Discussions on the national development plan are ongoing and will be finalised over the coming week. I do not want to get too much into it but, obviously, we have a programme for Government. We have to deliver on social and affordable housing. There are a huge number of areas, including the URDF, vacancy, dereliction, voids, requirements under climate change, defective concrete blocks, heritage and water. There are a lot of demands right across what is a huge Department.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I will turn to the Land Development Agency. The Minister has said publicly that he wants to see its role expand, which I fully support. Will he comment on where he would like to see the role of the LDA go and the funding implications of an enhanced role for it?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Cabinet committee on housing recently agreed to an expanded role for the Land Development Agency. In addition, a memo was brought to Cabinet and got approval there. The Government has ensured the LDA has the resources needed to continue its essential work. Its capital has increased in recent times from €2.5 billion, when the LDA Act was first passed, to €6.25 billion. The recent recommendations include: developing a landbank to engage active land management policies to deliver private housing in appropriate locations; expanding the LDA's geographic area of operation, unlocking public lands for urban brownfield delivery; amending the LDA Act to expedite the development of suitable sites held by commercial State bodies; working with the Department of Finance on the exemption of designated cost-rental activity from corporation tax; and for the LDA to support local authorities' housing activation office in the Department in master-planning and infrastructure provision in towns and districts. There is a much-widened role for the LDA. It is currently about the size of one of the largest affordable housing bodies but we want to see it expand to very soon become the largest housing delivery body in the State.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister referred to affordable housing in his opening statement. The target for this year is 6,400, which is very welcome compared with where we were in the past. Where would he like to see affordable housing go? As he knows, I have been a long-time advocate for increasing our affordable housing targets to try to provide support to that cohort who are above social housing income limits, yet not in a position to provide accommodation in their own right. A sizeable cohort is not being supported at present. Affordable housing gives us an opportunity to support those individuals and couples. Where would the Minister like to see affordable housing go?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Affordable housing is providing very important housing solutions for people. Since Housing for All was launched, 14,500 affordable housing solutions have been delivered via approved housing bodies, local authorities, the LDA, the first home scheme and a number of other schemes. We have exceeded our target for this year, which is important. Affordable housing forms a very important mix in ensuring that no matter where people are in society, there is a housing solution for them, whether it is social, cost rental, affordable purchase or supports for people to be able to buy their own home in their own right. Affordable purchase remains a very important part of what we are doing and what we want to do, in seeing and ensuring those affordable units are being made available on a balanced regional basis to ensure that everybody who needs an opportunity has that access to it.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the focus on water infrastructure because it is directly related to housing delivery. Permission being given to the greater Dublin drainage scheme is obviously very welcome, but that will have a very significant capital draw as regards funding. How will we prepare for that? Is there a concern that large scheme will use up a lot of the capital funding Uisce Éireann will have? Will it be at the cost of other schemes? How do we ensure that does not happen?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We are acutely aware that the greater Dublin drainage, GDD, will require very significant capital. I am confident the Government will make that funding available without impacting on Uisce Éireann's strategy budget and will also ensure we secure the additional funding that will be ring-fenced for housing delivery. Ensuring we have water and wastewater capacity is essential in delivering the housing we need. We know there are challenges. We can have housing targets but we need to have the ability to connect those houses to water and wastewater. That forms an essential part of what we are doing through the NDP discussions.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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On the additional posts in the planning field, I recently met with An Coimisiún Pleanála, where significant progress is being made in turning around planning applications and planning appeals much faster. That is very welcome. It shows that when the resources are put in, it gets results in turnaround time.

The Minister mentioned that he would support additional posts in planning in local authorities. Specifically on housing delivery posts in local authorities, when we met with the chief executives previously, one of the main asks they had was additional staffing in the local authorities to assist them with the targets for social, affordable and cost rental. They are asking for additional posts. Is that something the Minister will consider in future funding?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Subhead D12 provides funding for additional planning staff in local authorities, which the Deputy alluded to. Local authorities are looking for more ring-fenced staff. I met with all the CEOs, and directors and senior planners, recently in Dublin. We certainly had some important discussions on that. We will continue to engage with local authorities to identify what else we can do to support them. Local authorities, by their very nature, have changed an awful lot in the past two decades. They were primarily housing authorities and water authorities, but they have been asked to do an awful lot in other areas, including culture, tourism, etc., and rightly so. They are on the ground and very well-primed for it. What it can mean, however, is staff being very much stretched in different directions at the moment. That is something we are very much looking at. Housing for All includes a commitment to strengthen the capacity of local authorities to initiate, design, plan, develop and manage housing projects. Significant work has been undertaken to identify the additional staff resources required by local authorities.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister and his team for the briefings. To be clear, will he confirm whether the figures in front of us do or do not include the committed €715 million Supplementary Estimate? I assume not, but just so we are clear.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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It does.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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It does include that.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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It includes the €715 million.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I will focus on comparisons between the spend at the end of last year and what is allocated in the Supplementary Estimate on the key capital programmes for social and affordable housing. When I look at the outturn across the three key social housing programmes, namely, SHIP, CAS and CAF, the spend at the end of last year was €2.662 billion. That is for new-build social housing as well as the 1,500 social housing acquisitions. What the Minister is saying is that, with the Supplementary Estimate across those three programmes, just €2.242 billion is being finally allocated this year. That is a shortfall of €400 million on what was spent last year. I know outturn and Estimates are different, and more money can be secured later in the year, but given that the Department's social housing targets are higher, especially on the new-build side - acquisitions are different - I do not understand why its starting position would not be what it had last year and if it needs more than that, it would ask for it. How is it that, as it stands for local authorities and AHBs, there is €400 million less in the pot to deliver a larger number of units this year?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy rightly pointed out, outturn last year versus where we are at this year in the middle of July are not directly comparable. We will continue to spend as significantly as we can. We are already ahead in expenditure at this stage of the year versus where we were last year.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Is the Minister saying the Department might come back for an additional Supplementary Estimate to make up that shortfall later in the year, if it is approaching its targets?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We will always continue to engage with the Department of public expenditure and reform but-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Does the Minister accept the Department will not be able to meet its targets unless it has more in the capital funds for SHIP, CAS and CAF than the €2.24 billion in front of us?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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No, I do not necessarily accept that. We are only in the month of July. We will understand and be able to compare one outturn with another when we get to the end of this outturn. That is the fairer comparable.

So far this year, €1.7 billion has been spent or drawn down on social housing from January to July. That is well ahead of where we were last year.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Sure. It is about the same as where we were the year before but the Minister is correct on that. Regarding the cost rental equity loan scheme, CREL and the affordable housing fund, the outturn last year was €761 million and what we have here is €750 million, so there is an €11 million shortfall. We know that, particularly with CREL, the cost of the units is significantly higher. That is why in the Supplementary Estimates the scheme is being given an extra €265 million. My concern is that the Department is 1,500 units shy of its cost rental and affordable housing fund purchase targets last year. In real terms, there will have to be additional capital later in the year, if the Department is to meet the target, which is about 4,400 cost rental and affordable purchase units in the Government's current housing plan. More money will be needed because the cost of delivering units, be they new-build social, turnkey social or new-build affordable or turnkey affordable, is going up. Currently there is a gap and if the Department is to meet its targets, it will need to fill this gap in affordable housing. Am I wrong?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The figure I have is that at the end of 2024 it was €434.995 million and the allocation for 2025 is €595.3 million, which is a significant increase. With affordable housing, expenditure at the end of 2024 was €94.4 million, whereas the allocation for 2025 is €155 million. Again, this is an increase in terms of allocation. With the Department's funding of housing projects we would always keep it under review and seek additional funding if necessary.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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It is important that we do not waste our time having rows over numbers. Chair, it might be really useful if the Department were to furnish us with the outturn under each of the heads and programmes across the Department. This would mean us having the two sets of figures which would be useful. I could ask for them through parliamentary questions but it would be useful if the Department were to give us that outturn for all of those programme heads.

Moving on to targets, until the NDP review is done and the Minister negotiates with his Cabinet colleagues on capital ceilings, he will not be able to give definitive answers about new-build social or affordable targets. That being said, is it the Minister's hope or desire that the current target of 10,000 new-build socials and 4,400 cost rentals and affordable purchases should increase? Would the Minister like to see those targets increase, subject to the outcome of the NDP capital ceiling review?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We have an agreed programme for Government that has been published and over the next-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That has the 10,000 social homes but it does not have any commitments on affordable targets. I am thinking particularly about cost rental and affordable housing fund purchases.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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When we complete the national development plan and we work through our housing plan we will set out all of those particular targets in more detail and how we will focus on them.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Regarding the housing targets, is the Minister hopeful that he will be able to set those out in September or at the end of August?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Once we have the national development plan completed. It is common sense that we cannot complete the housing plan until the national development plan is completed.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, I fully accept that, but I am asking about a timeline.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We will do it as quickly as possible thereafter.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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For the Minister's predecessors, social housing targets were very clear. As was the case when Eoghan Murphy and Simon Coveney had responsibility for this area, the Minister has revived the practice - I have no issue with it - whereby we do not just have the target for new-build social and acquisitions and leases, but they are actually broken down by local authority, which is very helpful. We have never had the same clarity on affordable housing. For example, as published in the Revised Estimates document, there is a general affordable housing target of 6,400, but that is between the three streams, namely, the first home scheme, cost rental and the affordable purchase scheme. Piecing together the actual targets is a bit trickier. Is it his intention or would the Minister be willing to publish the data for affordable housing in exactly the same way as it is being done for social housing but to include the LDA and the AHBs, so that we know exactly what the year-on-year target is and how that is broken down by the functional areas of the local authorities?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We are examining that proposal as part of the new housing plan.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That would be very welcome. Regarding the housing needs demand assessment new housing targets, have the local authorities actually been given the new targets yet? I know the Minister wrote to them telling them they were on the way but have they actually got them? If they have, when did they get them and will the Minister share them with the committee?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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No, we have not given those to them yet.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Okay. Do we know when?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Again, it follows from the NDP.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I appreciate that these things take time, but the Minister is essentially saying that it could be almost a year between the formation of the Government and the actual new target being given to local authorities. I know they can start doing some preparatory work, but until they have the targets they cannot formally start the material alterations to the development plans. Is the Minister hoping that this will be completed in the summer or in September?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The reality is that the NDP will be completed over the next week or two weeks and we will then finalise our housing plan. Realistically we are at the end of the Dáil term so we are looking at the autumn. If it is the national planning framework targets the Deputy is referring to, we will be issuing those in the next two weeks to local authorities. We have prepared a lot with the local authorities, giving them indications of the general direction of the output.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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So the Minister is saying that they will get the numbers within the next couple of weeks, so that they can formally start the process.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, my apologies for the confusion.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That is okay. Obviously, the ten-year breakdowns of social and affordable will be in the autumn. I will throw out my final three questions quickly. Is there any update on the one-stage process? I am particularly interested to know how the Minister will balance the risk, which is one of the concerns that local authorities have been raising with departmental officials.

I have a concern about the amount of funding in the Estimates for flat regeneration and the linking of funding for flat regeneration, such as at Pearse House, to increased density. That will not be possible in all schemes and given that these are some of the worst rental conditions, both public and private, in the State, there needs to be greater flexibility. I am interested in the Minister's view on this. If we can get increased density, I am all for it, but it should not be a precondition.

Finally, I am hearing a lot of concern from small AHBs about CAS, both new builds and acquisitions, and stuff getting turned down or not being decided on. This is particularly the case for smaller AHBs that do work for people with special needs, disabilities or mental health issues. Any clarity on that would be helpful.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Regarding the one-stage process, local authorities will be locked into that from quarter 3, that is, the autumn. They will have to follow the one-stage process and mandatorily use the housing designs in relation to it. After engaging with the Department of public expenditure, we are satisfied in terms of how we manage that risk. We are fairly confident and happy that we can manage that. The Deputy is right that we have increased the limits from €80 million to €200 million, which is quite substantial. In terms of speeding up the delivery, it is absolutely crucial.

In relation to Pearse House, we have not looked into increasing-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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It is not specifically about Pearse House. That is just an example. My concern was more about the general policy.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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It is important that we retain the density. We are looking at proposals from local authorities when they seek to regenerate flats. The purpose of regeneration is that people can have modern homes to live in. Many flats need this kind of regeneration. We also have to maintain a density so that we keep homes that people can live in as well. That is really important.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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We are all agreed that we should attempt to increase the density but if some of these flats from the 1930s and 1940s are given adequate standards then density will have to be lost, unless the physical structure can take an extra floor, as happened at St. Mary's Mansions, or there is additional council land available. The requirement for increased density is too rigid. Some of these sites will not allow density to be increased and we cannot say to the local authority in question that we cannot actually give people 21st century homes on sites where the required density is not possible. Of course if it is possible it should be done but all I am asking is for the Minister to look at this with a view to providing a bit more flexibility for Dublin City Council, in particular.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We will key an eye on this on a case-by-case basis. Regarding CAS, we amalgamated it with second-hand acquisitions. With the pressure that existed under the pre-approved numbers of tenant in situ, perhaps some of the projects for CAS did not get the priority they should have. I am very much aware of this and I am examining it.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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It is affecting new builds as well, not just the acquisitions, but I will leave it at that, Chair. I thank the Minister.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister and his team for the update. As we are well aware, housing is the big issue, Regarding our targets for 2025 and with how costs have increased, will we be in a position to meet our targets?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Cooney. On our overall 2025 targets, I have publicly stated that at this point it is going to be extremely challenging and probably not realistic to meet them. We are starting from much further behind than I would have expected. When the targets were drawn up we would have been expecting delivery for last year to be much higher but it was considerably lower. That was very disappointing and has obviously had an impact on the delivery of homes people desperately need. As a consequence, to move from a little over 30,000 to 41,000 is simply not realistic and that would seem to be the general analysis out there. It is still very early in the year but when you look at the trajectory I think we will increase the delivery in the number of homes over last year, but the overall target is very challenging.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Without a doubt it is challenging. The Minister has a big concern about the cost of delivering units. Is there anything that can be reviewed and looked at regarding the costs? The costs have gone crazy.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The costs have increased significantly, and there are various reasons for that. Part of it is supply, part is input costs, financing costs and a range of other reasons. It has having a huge impact on affordability and the ability of people to purchase those homes, as well as viability so developers and builders can be able to deliver the homes as well. We are trying to address viability and affordability through different streams. On affordability, it is about supporting people to purchase those homes and on viability it is about trying to bring down the costs. Ultimately, if we can deliver more homes that too will help address the cost. We know, for example, that any city around the world that has high rents has high homelessness. There is a very strong correlation between those. There are high rents where there is an undersupply in terms of the needs of people.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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On investment in infrastructure, do we need to look at investing more in that to try to get development going in areas where there is no development? We are well aware there are parts of the country where there is little or no development going on. Where can we look at getting funding and investment to see if we can get that infrastructure in place?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The national development plan is very much focused on infrastructure and the understanding we are very challenged where it is concerned, especially water infrastructure, our electricity grid and also roads, for example. On rural areas, I come from a provincial town in a rural constituency and am very conscious that in those towns you are never going to get the big developers, so what we have to do and what I am doing is seeing how we can activate medium and smaller builders. Also for those in rural areas, being able to have developer-led wastewater treatment plants that would be certified, regulated and then handed over to Uisce Éireann, for example, would help deliver housing in more rural areas where we are never going to be able to get the bigger developers to settle down. It helps with trying to get houses into those rural villages but also into provincial towns that have not been getting those supports either. I always give the example of Donegal, which was low in the recent league table when it came to meeting its targets. In fairness, and I defended Donegal on this, it is actually quite good on own-build, but it has a challenge with not really having any affordable housing body active up there and not much private activity either, which would allow it to use Part 8. Donegal has been struggling in that sense, and also with the huge workload from defective concrete blocks as well. I am very conscious of rural areas. As I said, I come from a rural village and I live in a provincial town.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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That is a serious concern. On where there is and is not infrastructure, I believe the Minister is talking about reviewing county development plans going forward. Is that something that will happen sooner rather than later, or what is the update? I am aware of areas in my county where there is good infrastructure in place, but now they are beginning to get limited with land for development. What are the Minister's views there, especially given the amount of funding the Government is putting into housing?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We need the infrastructure, the housing funding and we also need the zoned land so people can build homes on it. Some areas are very constrained. We will be writing to the local authorities under the national planning framework to set out the new numbers for those local authorities. I hope to see a significant amount of land being rezoned. I hope the local authorities and the councillors move quite quickly to get that additional land zoned, especially where, as the Deputy said, we already have the infrastructure in place. Those are the ideal spots to get housing delivered quite quickly.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Based on the Estimates in front of us, we probably have funding to deliver the units, but the stumbling blocks in our way are what will prevent us from delivering what we are hoping to achieve for 2025. I thank the Minister very much for his time.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I thank the Minister and his officials for providing the information. Maybe he can explain some of it to me. Given he has said we have a housing emergency and we also have a budget surplus of billions of euro, has he requested significant additional capital in the budgetary process and does he expect a significant increase in capital allocation in the budget for social and affordable housing delivery?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We have to understand where we are at already. About 30% of all capital is being spent by the Department. It almost €1 in €3. Other Departments have demands as well. The communities where we are building housing need schools, hospitals and roads so there is only a certain amount the Department of housing can take. We are spending record amounts of money on capital expenditure. That is really important and it has been considerably increased in the last few years. We are obviously seeking as much money as we can get to continue to deliver housing under the NDP. There are a lot of demands on the national development plan. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, is trying to maximise funding for schools and rightly so, the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, needs funding for healthcare capital and the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, needs funding for roads, public transport, etc. There are a lot of demands there but we are certainly trying to seek as much funding as we can for housing delivery.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I thank the Minister. Can he understand how members of the public would be very confused and frustrated when they look at a budget surplus of billions of euro, a Government and everybody saying there is a housing emergency and that money not being allocated into delivering the additional social and affordable homes it could be if that decision was made?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I am sure the Deputy explains to the public when he is talking to them that funding is being allocated through the national development plan. It has to be balanced. Approximately 30% of all capital going to housing is an extraordinary percentage of our State capital. However, those same members of the public also need healthcare. They need our hospitals, community healthcare centres, schools for their children, roads to get to the schools and hospitals, community centres and the local sports facilities which are now often the heart of those communities. There are huge demands on our capital infrastructure across the State. Housing is being prioritised by the State and always has been. I am doing so for social and affordable housing as well, within the Department.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Okay. I find it deeply frustrating and a lot of members of the public do as well. It is stated that €3.9 billion is being allocated to housing in terms of capital and then the Minister said €6.8 billion. I have a couple of questions on that. Of the €3.9 billion, how much capital is delivering new, additional units and is not in other schemes like regeneration and remediation? There is the LDA. I cannot remember the exact figure the Minister gave. It was between €1 billion and €2 billion. Then there is the Housing Finance Agency. Will he clarify that the Housing Finance Agency funding is additional new lending to new units being delivered rather than, say, existing obligations in terms of borrowing being given out? Similarly with the LDA, is the money it is spending the Minister referred to in the annual €6.8 billion additional new capital being spent on new units by the LDA?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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A total of €2.4 billion is being spent on social housing. In 2022, this money is facilitated the highest level of delivery in the State since 1975. The record was again surpassed in 2023. In 2024, 7,871 new-build social homes were delivered. We are aiming to maximise the delivery of social homes. The amount allocated in respect of affordable housing is €1.1 billion. The LDA's funding is set out. Will the Deputy clarify his question?

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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The Minister stated that €6.8 billion is being spent on housing each year. I am trying to figure out how much of that is being spent on delivering new housing each year. I refer here to LDA and Housing Finance Agency funding. I not referring to money that was spent on housing that was built a couple of years ago and that is being used to pay off loans, etc.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I will add it up for the Deputy.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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If the Minister could do that and get back to me, I would appreciate it.

Following on from Deputy Ó Broin's question, my analysis is that there has been a reduction of 12% in the funding for local authority housing between 2024 and 2025. Is this right? In the 2024 Estimate, the figure was €1.6 billion. The figure for 2025 is €1.4 billion.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I do not have the percentage, but it looks approximately correct.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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What was the reason for that?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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In terms of delivering housing, we use every means available to us. Sometimes it is local authorities, the LDA or affordable housing bodies. Ultimately, we are dependent on local authorities to drive the delivery of social homes. It also depends sometimes on the timing of the drawdown in terms of the necessary funding. The allocation under subhead A3 for 2024 included development levy waivers of €255 million, so that would pretty much account for most of the difference between the two figures.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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In the context of delivering social housing, inflation is an ongoing consideration. Everybody is talking about it. The Minister is trying to bring about an increase in the delivery of such housing. However, he is saying that basically we have more or less the same budget this year as last to facilitate delivery.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We always make an assessment of what how best to deliver housing in a particular year as quickly as possible, whether it is through local authorities, in the context of affordable housing, the LDA or whatever. I encourage local authorities to apply for further funding. We went from a four-stage to a one-stage process and increased the ceiling from €8 million to €200 million to encourage local authorities to apply for even more. A lot of the allocation is often based on what the estimate would be of the amount local authorities would be to draw down in a particular year.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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In the briefing notes on social housing, there is a reference to social housing PPPs and the success of the model. Given what has happened in recent weeks, that could be seriously called into question. Does the Minister still consider it a successful model? Is funding being allocated to ensure that those social housing projects that were due to be delivered through PPP will delivered as soon as possible?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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A judicial review has been entered into in respect of the most recent PPP, so I must be very careful about any commentary I make. There is a future for PPPs. As stated previously, however, we are reviewing the model. In the context of the local authorities that have been affected, I want to see the social housing that has been committed to delivered as quickly as possible. Obviously, that is complicated by the court case taken by a number of companies involved in the PPP. Anything I might say in terms of how those houses may be delivered could prejudice that case.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Is the Minister disappointed that his decision has affected the delivery of social housing projects?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy is aware, that is a live case before the courts. I cannot comment on it.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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My final question relates to affordable housing. The figure provided in respect of affordable housing units is 6,400. Could the Minister break that down in terms of vacant, cost-rental and affordable purchase houses? I would question the officials in the context of vacant housing units being included in the numbers for affordable housing. Can the Minister explain how such units are being used to deliver affordable housing?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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These are houses that have not been occupied. They very often are not fit for occupation. We provide funding to people to allow them to acquire these properties and bring them back into use. As a result, we are making those houses affordable for allow people to acquire and live in. It is very much an affordable purchase mechanism. The output in 2024 for total affordable purchase was 4,979 units. The target for 2025 is 4,100.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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It was 4,979 in 2024 and it is 4,100 for 2025. Is that right?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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That is output versus target.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Sorry, it is output versus target. There is no affordability measure regarding vacant properties. If someone receives the vacant property grant, there is no affordability assessment. In other words, there is no assessment of whether he or she needs or does not need affordable housing. In addition, there is nothing which guarantees that the housing being delivered through that mechanism is affordable. While I might disagree with the local authority affordable purchase scheme or the first home scheme, I can clearly state that they are affordability measures.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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That is true, but it does make the house more affordable to purchase.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I would ask the Department to look at that. I think it should be recategorised.

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the additional funding for those local authorities that would have been categorised as self-financing. In the case of Dublin city, that will amount to about €19 million in extra funding. I say extra, but this is money raised in Dublin city being retained in Dublin city. It is always difficult to get excited about additional funding for local authorities because in the past, what one hand has given, the other has taken away. I know many people who have spent a lot of time in local authorities and who find it very difficult to have transparency over the total amount of funding coming from the Department in any one year. This is something the Minister has seen. It is very difficult to track down all the different streams of funding coming into a local authority and to see whether the overall amount is more or less and whether money that is retained - perhaps through LPT - is not in some way diverted for other ring-fenced or protected funds such as those relating to roads, etc. Could the Minister clarify that the €19 million is new and additional? Has he given consideration to how we might help local authority members understand matters a bit better, particularly in the interests of transparency?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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That money is new and additional. In recent years, the Exchequer has been the net beneficiary of the local property tax, which I understand was not the intention. When I was a local councillor, it was explained to me that this was not the intention. With the changes to the local property tax bands this year, the amount the Exchequer would have been keeping would have been egregious, particularly for those local authorities that were making a significant contribution. I was determined to as close as possible zero out the local property tax contribution to the Exchequer and allow those local authorities that were making those contributions to keep the funding because it is those local authorities that have an issue with housing. That is why I wanted the €19 million. I assure the Deputy that it will not be taken from any other-----

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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When the Secretary General of the Department was before the Committee of Public Accounts, the accounts that were prepared showed several hundred million retained in the LPT fund, which was egregious because there was a need for it to be implemented. Will the distribution of additional funding happen to continue to ensure that no surplus is generated?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy is right. One of the reasons I wanted to do it this year is that if it had continued on, in a few years it would have become so big and the Exchequer would become so used to it that it would become harder to make the change. For example, that €90 million for Dublin City Council will now be there every year until there are changes to the LPT or whatever the case may be. That should have a very positive cumulative effect for Dublin City Council and for the other nine local authorities which are net contributors.

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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The Estimates contain many streams of funding. One of them helps fund housing aid for older people. The Minister will know, because I have discussed it with him privately, about the recent EU directive to prevent the subsidisation of carbon-consuming devices, namely gas or oil boilers. The change to the scheme this year has had an impact in the context of how it is implemented. In Dublin City Council, 65% of the grants last year for housing aid for older people were used for boiler replacements. I believe it was 30% for windows and doors and about 7% for rewiring. Those are the top three categories. If 65% of the fund is no longer available for boilers, I suggest that some money will go unspent. If that is an issue in one local authority it will be an issue across the Department's Estimates.

The SEAI needs to put a solution in place. If someone's boiler breaks, it needs to be replaced fairly quickly. There is an opportunity to replace it with a more environmentally friendly option. The difficulty is that the cost for a full retrofit is nearly €50,000. These people are often eligible for the better energy warmer homes scheme and are entitled to that full intervention but they would have to wait two or three years to get it. However, we have State solutions that are already available but we are not able to implement them quickly enough to prevent that person going ahead and just paying the €2,000 or €2,200 and getting a new gas boiler at their own expense, even though they really cannot afford it. There is a policy instrument that we need to examine. We also need to examine the Estimates because there will be a surplus in that fund this year if it cannot be used.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy alluded to, it relates to EU directive 2024/1275, which was implemented on 1 January last. People are allowed to repair an existing oil or gas boilers and replace it with a second-hand model if they can locate one. It can be replaced by a hybrid boiler, that is an oil boiler combined with a heat pump. These are not very common but apparently they do exist. Of course, there are also wall mounted electric heaters, HVO and wood pellet boilers. I agree that it can be quite slow getting some of them. We will engage with the SEAI to see if we get a situation-----

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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There is a very simple system where someone can replace a whole gas boiler system with an electric radiator system for between €3,000 and €7,000. We need to explain that to people, have a package that is easily available and have contractors in the market. The difficulty is that there is nobody in the market repairing second-hand boilers. It is hard enough to get a plumber to install a new one. We need to have ready-made solutions that people can avail of if we want them to switch which is what we want.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I fundamentally agree. We will engage with the SEAI. We will look at it in our Department to see what can be facilitated. As I said, repairs and second-hand boilers are permitted. I assure the Deputy that there will be no unspent money. There is high demand under these schemes and if money is not used for boilers, I have no doubt it will be drawn down for-----

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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The solution needs to come from the SEAI.

On affordable housing, at this committee and at the public accounts committee, the Department and the industry have both stated that within the M50 ring there will, at least in the foreseeable future, never be a home built to sell for profit. Effectively, most of the units to be built in that area will be subsidised in one form or another, whether it is through viability measures or as public housing. The lack of availability of homes to purchase comes as a direct result of that. Outside the M50 ring there are more opportunities for land for private developers to build what previously might have been called starter homes. The Department regulations in the city demand apartments as the only form of construction. Despite what the public thinks, that inevitably increases the cost of construction of those units. As a result, a subsidy is needed.

The issue is that a number of the sites in my constituency which the council has identified for affordable purchase now need a subsidy of more than the €100,000 or €125,000 than was previously earmarked. The matter is bouncing back and forth between the council and the Department. The departmental officials are saying they cannot deliver affordability. What they really mean is that they need more than €125,000 to make them affordable to purchase. Some other properties in the area, maybe former local authority homes, are on sale for €300,000 or €310,000. There is no comparison between a brand-new built home that is A-rated at the top of the range and an old local authority home that might have been empty for a number of years and that needs substantial work done.

The Department needs to examine the funding of these affordable housing sites. In using the words "it is hard to get viability on it", the Minister is actually saying that we are not willing to provide a subsidy. Is a moral question about the upper limit of a subsidy to be provided to one couple or one person buying a home. I have no problem with that debate, but if we insist on apartments in the city, they will cost more than an average person can afford to pay and the State will always have to make up the difference if we want to make it affordable for people to purchase. Caroline Timmons in the Department is working very hard, but this area of affordable purchase will reach a point where we will not be able to deliver affordable housing because the subsidy will not be enough.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy is saying that even when someone applies for the subsidy, the cost of a home within the M50 is still beyond what is affordable for many couples. We are continuing to examine Croí Cónaithe cities. We are looking to work with the LDA, and the LDA is working with Dublin City Council on that. We are taking measures around viability but we need to ensure we have measures on affordability as well so that we can get properties built in the city that people can afford to live in. I want to see people living in Dublin city. Having people living in a city is crucial to the well-being of that city. We know this from looking at the history of many cities over the past 100 years. We will continue to engage with the Department of public expenditure and reform to look at these schemes.

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)
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I might forward to the Minister details of a number of sites that have been identified in my area as reaching the threshold of viability. The Department needs to work very closely with Dublin City Council to make sure they are built. Regardless of whether they are subsidised, we need the construction to start. We can work out the finances of it as it goes.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I agree with the Deputy.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister for being here. Unfortunately, I have to start with a negative comment on what he said to the effect that it is not realistic to hit the targets the Government should be hitting this year. That is an outrageous admission for the Minister for housing to make. He was in the previous Government. He was part of the Government that went around during the election campaign talking about the 40,000 houses that the dogs in the street knew could not be delivered. Now he has come in here to dampen expectations. It was 10,000 too many before the general election and now it is 10,000 less. This is an astounding comment by the Minister today when we are talking about the Estimates. We are talking about affordable housing, social housing, cost rental and private housing. It is shocking.

The Minister spoke about affordability earlier. Affordable housing on the Old Mallow Road in Cork is being rolled out at just under €400,000. It is possible to buy a house cheaper than that on the north side of Cork city. Where are the criteria for those houses on the Old Mallow Road in Cork to come in at almost €400,000? Will the Minister comment on targets not being reached and on affordability?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I am surprised that the Deputy is shocked by my comments, particularly because it is not the first time I have said it. I have said it quite publicly in recent times. That is just analysing matters and looking at what a number of bodies, such as the ESRI, have said. If I was coming in saying something else, the Deputy would rightly accuse me of not being realistic. That is what I have to do in that regard.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Just to clarify, when the ESRI and others produced data last September that showed the Government was not going to hit its targets the then Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister for housing, Deputy O'Brien, used data from a German bank or some other body. The then Taoiseach and Tánaiste would not take the ESRI's information and now the Minister is telling us he is being realistic in listening to the ESRI. We need clarity from the Government. Is the Taoiseach now accepting that what the ESRI said was correct? Someone is right and someone is wrong, and I think the Minister is right. I think he is being honest, but it is easy to be honest in regard to affordability when we are four years away from a general election.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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In regard to affordability, my understanding is those properties on Old Mallow Road are brand-new, A-rated homes. There will always be a cost for new homes versus second-hand homes. That may be the case. I will look into the particular scheme. The Deputy understands he cannot expect me to come in here and know every scheme in the whole country.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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That is fair enough. I would appreciate it if the Minister looked into this issue.

I will move on to the fact that the derelict sites levy is not being collected by almost half the local authorities. There are local authorities that are not putting sites under the derelict sites levy. We have derelict sites. The figure nationally is €20 million but the figure for Cork is €5 million. We are discussing the Estimates and funding for local authorities. What is being done to collect the derelict sites levy and implement it on sites that are derelict? Deputy Browne is the Minister now. I know he has spoken about this but we are speaking about millions of euro here.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I agree with the Deputy. My view is that leaving sites derelict is antisocial behaviour. I praise those local authorities that are being very active in collecting the site levies. It also boosts their income. I am highly critical of local authorities that are not doing it because not only are they missing out on an income that could be spent elsewhere in the local authority and failing to implement Government policy, which is simply wrong, but they are also allowing what I believe to be antisocial behaviour to continue in their local authorities. Derelict sites are contagious.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I know the Minister published a chart related to local authorities and their performance. What will he do to ensure the derelict sites levy is applied to sites and that derelict site levy funding of millions of euro is collected?

Following from that, what is the Minister doing to make it easier for local authorities to use compulsory purchase orders? Will the Minister provide the funding to local authorities to staff CPO offices in each housing department so that land hoarders - you want to walk the streets in parts of Dublin-----

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I do that regularly.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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The dereliction that is being allowed is unbelievable. It is not just in Dublin but in Cork, Limerick and everywhere. It is in towns and villages. Does the Minister have a plan to tackle that from a financial point of view?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We have a CPO activation programme. We have given funding under round 3 of the URDF to local authorities to CPO properties as well. There is a commitment in the programme for Government to examine the CPO process to see how we can make it more effective and efficient. Again, a little bit like the four-stage process we are getting rid of, I find some local authority CEOs are very effective at using the CPO process, whereas other local authorities that want to find a problem with it tend to find a problem with it. I intend to simplify the CPO process to remove this as an excuse for some local authorities.

I agree with the Deputy on the derelict site levies. I intend to bring a memo to Cabinet highlighting which local authorities have been collecting the levies and which have not. I agree that when we look at the level of dereliction, one would think that Dublin City Council would be collecting an awful lot of money in derelict site levies. It is always saying it needs more money.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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In regard to funding for local authorities, I have raised this issue numerous times with the Minister. I received figures yesterday that show there were more children are homeless in Cork during the first six months of this year than there were in 2021, 2022 or 2023. It is an astounding figure. I have the figures in front of me. In 2021, no child in Cork was homeless for longer than a year. In 2025, 46 children have been homeless for longer than a year. This is proof. It is contained in a response to a question we received from Cork City Council. During the first six months of this year, there were 149 families homeless in Cork alone, including 292 children. The figure for last year was 332 children, so it is only 40 lower after six months. I believe the decision to slash the tenant in situ scheme is leading to this. We know that the tenant in situ scheme prevented 100 children and, I think, 65 adults from going into homelessness last year. It was the strongest tool we had to prevent homelessness. This is the situation in Cork, but it also the case in Dublin, Limerick and everywhere else. Will the Minister reinstate the tenant in situ scheme? I would go further. Will the Minister give additional funding? Downsizing has also stopped because that was funded under the same scheme. There are older people living alone in three-, four- or five-bedroom houses who want to sell their property to their local authority but there is no funding there. We also have the situation where homeless charities cannot buy any more houses or apartments under the housing first scheme because there is no funding available. Will the Minister please invest in those schemes?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I am acutely aware of the impact on those children who are living in homelessness. Homelessness does have a real impact on them mentally, physically and in terms of social development. That is why I am doing everything I can to get housing moving in this country. The only way we will address homelessness, high rents and the high cost of homes is by getting supply going as quickly as possible. By next Tuesday, I will have brought 60 memos to Cabinet. Some of them might relate to reports but a large number of them relate to decisions to try to get housing moving in this country. We did it before and I believe we can do it again so we have no more children going into homelessness and we can get those who are in homelessness out of it.

We have not slashed the tenant in situ scheme. The funding allocation is very significant this year, as the Deputy knows. There was €60 million allocated-----

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Sorry, I only have a few seconds left on the clock.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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-----and we increased that to €320 million.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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We will have to agree to disagree.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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In terms of Cork city there had been only a 42% drawdown of the funding for the tenant in situ scheme.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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We will have to agree to disagree because my time is running out. The figures I have show there were 292 children homeless in Cork in the first six months of this year. The Minister cannot argue with that. To give some facts, in 2021, there were 224 children homeless in Cork, so there are an additional 49 homeless children in six months alone. The Minister might get a chance to come back to this issue later.

There are huge problems across every local authority with flats, complexes and properties that were built 70, 80 and 90 years ago. We need a funding stream to be put in place for local authorities to tackle windows, doors, retrofitting and insulation. Local authorities do not have that money. In relation to the 2030 climate commitments, if we do not hit our targets, we will be spending billions of euro on fines. Would we not be better off investing that money now in local authorities to deliver retrofitting. My dad lives in Harbour View Road in Knocknaheeny. Harbour View Road was retrofitted and it made a major difference. The problem i, it is only one road. We need retrofitting rolled out across the State. We know it works so why do we not roll it out?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I want to ensure there are no children going into homelessness. We have already had a record number of preventions of families and others going into homelessness and record numbers of exits. We want to get to a point where nobody is going into homelessness any more. The tenant in situ scheme is an important part of that, as is homeless HAP, the new social housing stock and turning voids around as quickly as possible. I take the view that as regards voids, which for anyone listening at home are empty council houses that people have handed back, there is no reason they take so long to turn around.

We take different views as to why that is. Mine is that many local authorities spend too long doing work on the properties that is too deep. When a council house becomes empty, it should be turned around as quickly as possible, ensuring that it meets health and safety criteria and that it is nice, clean, repainted and presentable for people, because a new family will be moving in. Some local authorities are doing way too deep retrofitting work on homes that does not need to be done at that point; it should be done as planned work. I want to get the voids turned around as quickly as possible and I will be issuing a circular to local authorities on how to do that because there is a lack of consistency. That will help to prevent people from going into homelessness.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I have a few points myself. On the Minister’s last point on consistency, and on circulars being issued to local authorities, there seems to be a disparity in the amounts being spent. I think €11,000 per unit is refundable. My local authority has done significant work to reduce the number of voids from the high of probably two years ago to a low now. We are down in the region of €5 million if we compare the cost of bringing the houses back into stock with what we got from the Department. I ask the Minister to consider this because it has put us in a very tight situation. Mine is a very small local authority.

I have a few more points. The affordable housing figure was €155 million. Should that be higher? There should be more schemes available throughout the country. In the whole county of Longford, no private housing has been built since 2008. The affordable housing, whose associated scheme was sanctioned just recently, is only being built at the minute. Therefore, no couple has had the possibility of buying a new home for the past 15 years. We need to consider rolling out more schemes like affordable housing schemes or local authority serviced sites. In towns where large serviced sites were developed by local authorities and sold to young families, those families are still living there in many cases, yet there seems to be a very minimal number of serviced sites in development. The croí cónaithe figure is €80 million, and that includes the local authority serviced sites. The croí cónaithe scheme has been very successful. I have seen how many houses have been upgraded through it all over rural Ireland, but should more money be drawn down under such schemes throughout the country to provide more serviced sites in local authority areas? Are some local authorities actually providing them, or what is the reason? Those are my first couple of points.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach. On the supports of the Department for local authorities to bring voids back into use, a local authority can spend as much as it wants on any house but it is given €11,000, on average, per property. That was a decision by the Government to provide some additional supports to local authorities. Theoretically, local authorities are meant to bring the properties back in under their own steam, for want of a better phrase. We are examining why some local authorities are very good at managing to do this while others struggle. Some local authorities have very few arrears while some have a lot. In this regard, we should bear in mind the maintenance of funding going back into local authorities.

The serviced sites scheme could be used far more effectively. The Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, is very much focused on examining the serviced sites scheme and how we can use it a lot more using the ready-to-build mechanism. We are reviewing it because the local authority uptake is quite low, but I believe there actually is a demand for it. It is a question of determining whether the problem with providing serviced sites is administrative, a case of how the scheme is set up, or the result of a lack of awareness. The Minister of State is also particularly focused on how we can use the scheme an awful lot more.

We have an affordable housing fund application in from Longford for 25 homes but it is under review. It can be a struggle for certain counties – Longford is one of them – to actually meet the scheme criteria in a way that makes sense in terms of affordability. It is a matter I am examining because midlands counties suffer and then suffer again because neighbouring local authorities, perhaps with higher subsidies, can suck a bit of capacity.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I have a couple of points on the Revised Estimates. Representatives of the Residential Tenancies Board were at a committee meeting recently. Also before the committee were representatives of Tailte Éireann, whose job it is to manage the registration of properties. All I seem to hear about is delay after delay. Indeed, the RTB is saying it has not the capacity or funding to resource itself to where it needs to be, particularly where given the many changes in the form of RPZs, etc. Are we considering extra funding for both Tailte Éireann and the RTB? Is it needed?

The Minister alluded to compulsory purchase orders and to local authorities not using them. Have we considered compulsory sales orders where there are derelict properties or properties sitting empty? Have we considered making owners sell houses on condition that they be refurbished under a scheme when bought?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I have not considered compulsory sales but believe the derelict sites levy drives compulsory sales in the sense that it could make sense to sell a property rather than-----

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Local authorities are not levying.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I agree that is a problem. It is one I am very much focused on tackling. I am examining several options to ensure derelict sites are used. I take a very strong view on antisocial behaviour on foot of having derelict properties around the place. It is such a waste. There are people who need and want the properties and who would use them. Whether one comes from a Marxist perspective or a capitalist one, having a property going to rot is simply wrong. The owners are benefiting from State supports in terms of utilities, including water and electricity, and roads and so on. I take a very strong view on derelict properties so I will be tackling this head on.

The total provision for Tailte Éireann in 2025 was €91.2 million, which is significant funding, but we are continuing to engage with the body. In fairness to it, it took over a number of older State bodies that I would have engaged with in my legal practice and that were very slow. It has taken on a huge body of work, with reform. Many of the delays are still historical. Tailte Éireann has done considerable work on its ICT and bringing it all together, so it will get there in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. I am happy with the trajectory.

I agree that the RTB needs more funding. We are asking it to take on an awful lot more work. Rosemary Steen is a fantastic CEO and she has been able to highlight a lot of what the RTB can do, and as a result many more landlords are being compelled to register, which they should, and many more tenants are able to exercise their rights. We are asking the RTB take on new proposals on tenure. I am very conscious that the RTB needs more supports, and we intend to provide it with additional supports.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Let me just comment on a figure on which I have a view. Only 57% of houses, units or apartments are State supported. Is that sustainable?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The numbers behind that in terms of social and affordable housing being delivered are sustainable. Ideally, one would see more. However, as a percentage, it is not sustainable because we need to deliver much more housing. We need to get up to 50,000 homes and even beyond. We need to activate the private sector in this regard. If we get up to 50,000 or 60,000 homes or beyond, the State simply does not have the capital to deliver 50% in terms of social and affordable homes. Therefore, it depends. I do not want to see the number going down – I want to see it going up – but I expect to see the percentage change.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We will now have a second round. There are five members present, assuming no one else comes in. Each member will have five minutes. After five minutes, I will be moving on. It is questions and answers. We will go back to the start. I call Deputy Séamus McGrath.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The URDF was referred to in the Minister’s statement. When was the last call for the URDF and when is the next one anticipated? As the Minister knows, this is a critical fund for local authorities to bring forward applications. In many cases, it addresses issues around dereliction and vacancy by allowing local authorities to purchase properties and revitalise town centres. Will the Minister clarify where we are at in that regard?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The last round of the URDF was URDF 3, which was in 2023. It very much focused on derelict sites, compulsory purchase orders and bringing properties in local authority town centres back into use for local authorities to keep or to sell on. It was a self-replenishing fund in that respect. Previous to that, URDF 2 was announced between the end of 2020 and the start of 2021, which provided substantial funding for schemes in bigger towns and cities in particular. Some of those schemes have been slow to draw down. Some of them were quite big. Covid had a massive impact and slowed down some of the URDF schemes. We are seeing significant drawdown from them now, however. We will look at the URDF again within the context of the national development plan and what funding is made available. I am conscious both of the ambition among a lot of towns for the URDF and the fact that a number of large towns have never received any funding under the URDF or the RRDF.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister. I wish to go back to the question regarding the amount of funding the State is providing on housing in comparison with the private sector. In the Minister or the Department’s view, what is the ideal percentage breakdown between houses that are publicly funded versus those that are delivered privately? At the moment, as the Minister said, it is approximately 50%. Where would the Minister like to see that figure ideally?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We do not really look at it from a percentages perceptive. That is probably just to highlight the fact that there is a serious shortage of private delivery. We have our social and affordable housing targets, which are in more raw numbers. That is what we are aiming for, regardless of where those targets fall as a percentage. We want to encourage as much sensible, sustainable private delivery as possible as well.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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We accept the current breakdown is not sustainable into the future in the long term. I am asking where the Minister would like to see that breakdown land. In the view of the Department, how much does the private sector need to stand up?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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There were more than 30,000 homes last year. We need to get to 50,000 homes and beyond. The vast majority of those homes will need to be delivered by the private sector. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is spending approximately 30% - close to one third - of all capital funding. Considering all the demands in healthcare, education, transport, climate and everything else, there is only a certain amount of money available. We need to get the private sector activated if we are going to deliver the homes that we need. It is simply not active anywhere close to the degree we need it to be.

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister. I have slightly more than one minute left. I will ask three quick questions. The Minister will not have much time to answer. To make a comment first on the affordable housing subsidy, I totally agree with the earlier comments. It absolutely needs to be reviewed. What officials are telling me is that they are struggling to make affordable housing schemes work based on the subsidy and are defaulting to social housing as a result. While that will be great for social housing targets, it is not going to be good for affordable housing targets. That urgently needs to be looked at.

The apartment defects scheme is obviously coming down the tracks. There is going to be a sizeable amount of funding involved. Where are we with the budgeting for that? How much does the Minister expect to be involved? Will he provide a figure for the likely total of the overall apartment defects scheme?

I do not have time for my remaining question because the Minister will not have time to answer. I ask him to focus on those two points, please.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy. There is approximately €20 million this year allocated for the apartment defects scheme. We will keep future funding under consideration in the context of the national development plan and the budget.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I will make a quick comment and then ask a couple of questions. I do not accept that it is not sustainable to have a large proportion of overall housing output as social and affordable housing, irrespective of whether the overall output is 30,000, 40,000 or 50,000 homes. It is a political choice. There are ways of financing the delivery of 40% to 50% of all new homes in the State to meet social and affordable housing demand. In fact, if that is not done, the demand will not be met.

One of the challenges at the minute is that the overwhelming majority of development capital that is funding the building of homes is private sector capital. In fact, most of the State’s capital funding that is going towards new-build homes is purchasing them after the fact. That is incredibly inefficient in two ways. First, it is tying up private sector development capital that could be building private homes and, second, the State is then paying a premium on the cost of private capital.

In this conversation, sometimes it is said that there is no other alternative, but there are alternatives out there; people are just choosing not to take them. That is not an argument against the fact that we need more private sector investment, but there are also different types of private sector investment. In fact, the biggest gap in private sector investment is funding for the small and medium builder-developer sector. They are the only people who are going to build private sector homes in every county in the State, including in the Minister’s own county. These are choices that the Minister is making. They are not inevitabilities.

I have two questions. I was disappointed yesterday when we did not receive the Land Development Agency’s analysis of the potential cost savings of some of the recent changes to apartment sizes because we were hoping to get the LDA documentation. We received a summary document from the Minister’s officials that looked like it was hastily produced yesterday. I am not going to have a row with the Minister about it but will he provide us with the LDA documentation? If some of it needs to be redacted for commercial sensitivity, that is fine. We still need to see that documentation.

Second, I was kind of surprised to see that in the special planning policy requirement No. 1 on page 14 of the new guidelines, social housing and Part V developments are explicitly excluded from the new apartment guidelines but turnkey developments are not. We know that 50% of all new-build social homes and approximately 80% of cost-rental homes are turnkey properties. Will the Minister explain why some social and affordable housing developments will not be able to use the new standards while others will? Surely we should have the same set of standards across social and affordable homes, irrespective of how they are delivered.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I agree with the Deputy’s earlier comment. We want to get away from turnkey developments. We need to be plan-led in terms of social and affordable homes. That is certainly where we need to get to because it would be more efficient, cost effective and allow the private sector to make those homes available in the private sector. I certainly agree with the Deputy in that regard. That is certainly what I will be working towards as much as possible.

With regard to social housing, we have made the decision to move from a four-stage process to a one-stage process. Where social housing projects are being plan-led, we are mandating that they use the Department of housing’s manual design. That is the reason for the difference in terms of-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Notwithstanding the Minister's view, and that of the Secretary General, on turnkey developments, which I am broadly supportive of, does the Minister accept that the majority of new-build social and cost-rental homes will be delivered by private developers through turnkey for some time and that there is a good chance that a large volume of those will be with different standards? Is it not a problem for the Minister? Let me put the question the other way. Michael Stanley from Cairn Homes was out saying that in a number of projects, which are already identified as possible turnkeys for social housing, they are now going to put in, subject to the passing of legislation this week, requests for permitted alterations and that he would pass the savings on to the AHBs. If I understand the Department’s design standards - I do not agree with them but if I understand them – they are to active private sector supply. Surely they are not to save money for the State on AHB or LDA turnkeys.

That seems to me an odd outworking of what the Minister proposed last week and this week.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The outworking of that is the reality of the reliance on turnkeys. That is the reality of where we are at the moment.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Did the Minister look at excluding all social and affordable homes from SPPR No. 1 of the new regulations, not just own developments and Part Vs but turnkeys as well? Was that considered?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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What we want to do, and will do, is end late-stage turnkeys and ultimately get to the point where these are plan-led and the schemes we are doing-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I accept the Minister is saying that but over the next number of years between Project Tosaigh on the LDA side, CREL and SHIP and CALF turnkeys, turnkeys will continue for some years even as the Minister is trying to wind them down. Did he consider actively excluding turnkeys from SPPR No. 1 from the new apartment design standards alongside all of the social and affordable homes?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The challenge with turnkeys is they are private delivery, they have gone through planning, sometimes they are off plan and sometimes they are literally at the stage where they have the key to turn. The distinction I want to make in future is I do not think off plan should not refer to turnkey but I do not want to get into semantics. Until we get everything over to plan-led there will be a period where what the Department and myself are mandating local authorities to do versus the turnkeys will have a differential. That is the practical outturn of it. I accept that. There is very little that can be done about that practically. As I say, we want to get to a position where we are not relying on those turnkeys anymore. It is far from ideal and I accept that.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Chair.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Returning to the vacant and derelict house grants, they are a fantastic idea and we have got a lot of houses back into use and we have got people back in to towns and village centres which had been dead. We are well aware of the costs. Can we look at increasing those grants in future budgets? They have been a fantastic idea but they seem to have died off a bit. Can more be invested in this? Residential development over commercial properties is also important in the bigger cities and towns. We are all aware of the amount of residential accommodation lying idle in towns and cities. Can those be looked at? Another thing that would help young people is staged payments while these works are being carried out.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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There continues to be high demand. The grants are going well and the level seems okay.

I agree on over-the-shop development. We have a proposal with the Department of public expenditure and reform and we are trying to look at what that funding would look like. There are many shops in our provincial towns but also cities which would have an additional cost if they were to be turned into apartments again over the shop. Many have put the stairs out of the way and that would cost more money. We are looking at that too.

Something that should be highlighted much more is the local authority purchase and renovation scheme to help people with the financing. Many people are not aware that there is a specific loan to help with the financing of buying these vacant properties to turn them around.

I have looked at the staged process. It has proven very difficult because of the nature of the scheme where a charge is put on the property at the end of the scheme. There are a lot of legalities to it. The advice so far, and I continue to look at it, is that to do it on a staged process would require a very high level of inspection and legalities at a much earlier stage which would slow the process down and also increase the costs and the demands on local authority staff. I am very conscious that without a staged process it is difficult for some people to get on the scheme so I continue to examine it. Every way we can help young couples, or young individual people for that matter, is important.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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The most important thing is to get these houses back into use. Great work has been done with that grant. It was much appreciated.

Has affordable housing in rent pressure zone areas opened up to the whole country now, so you can build affordable houses?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The affordable housing scheme has significant availability. The challenge for some local authorities is when you apply the scheme, it does not make as much of a difference as it might, especially in local authorities where houses are not as expensive as in other areas and particularly when other grants are taken into account. The scheme is available across the country. We are doing some in Monaghan at the moment.

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Very good. Thank you.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I will see how many of my questions I can get through in five minutes. My first question is on affordable purchase housing and home ownership rates among young people between the ages of 25 to 29. Less than one quarter of people in that age group own their own home and there is no real sign of that changing. My question is on the lack of ambition in increasing home ownership and what is set out in the Estimates and potentially a new housing plan. This is particularly relevant in Dublin. Just 40% of the new homes that were built last year were bought by a home buyer. We need a new approach. How will the Minister ensure there will be a significant increase in homes for sale for people, particularly in Dublin? On additional funding, I have put across the idea of the homes for Ireland State savings scheme. Professor Michelle Norris and others support it. Is that a potential area for additional funding for affordable housing? Affordable housing can provide a revolving fund. It does not require the same level of funding on an ongoing basis as social and cost-rental housing. If we started to deliver affordable purchase on a much greater scale, that could provide a revolving fund that does not need the same level of funding.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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In the first quarter of 2025, over 1,600 affordable housing supports were delivered which is an increase of 49% on the first quarter of 2024. That highlights the continued year-on-year increase. I very much support home ownership as does the Government and its parties. We very much believe in home ownership and we continue to work on that. The programme for Government has a commitment of 15,000 starter homes which we will work out through the NDP and the housing plan. I agree that with affordable purchase, capital can be recycled. It is one important stream. When it comes to social, cost rental, affordable purchase and other supports to help people to get on that ladder, I am trying to ensure that no matter where people are on that scale they can get somewhere that is safe and secure for them to live in. Home ownership is certainly a hugely important part of that.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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To follow on from Deputy Ó Broin, when can the Minister give us the LDA analysis of the cost savings on the regulations?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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They were provided, or rather a breakdown of the funding in relation to how we worked out our funding model was provided. The raw data provided by the LDA is commercially sensitive. If there are any particular questions, the Deputy is more than welcome to direct them towards us and we will try to clarify any particular areas. The LDA data informed our decision-making, having informed our numbers, but the actual data is commercially sensitive.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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It is disappointing. Maybe in future decisions it would be helpful to have that evidence directly from the source. We completely support the LDA in what it is doing around social and affordable housing delivery but there are questions about what is in its own interest in increasing units and so on.

There is no increase in funding for communal facilities in social housing in the Estimates. Given that the Minister is aiming to increase the number of social housing units delivered, why are housing providers expected to provide communal facilities with what is essentially a reduced budget? This will be the case if numbers are being increased but the same figure remains for funding.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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In terms of communal facilities for social housing, we provide a certain amount of money for them. The previous Government had a strong record in terms of supporting funding for various projects to ensure communities had the necessary facilities they needed. Those supports came from the Department of housing but also included other supports that people needed.

Regarding delivery and draw-down, allocations are often based on what we expect the demand to be from local authorities. If local authorities come in to deliver more social housing and need more funding for communal facilities, we will always examine those requests.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Is there any plan to fund communal facilities within cost-rental and affordable rental housing developments?

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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In terms of cost-rental housing, we recently had the first delivery out in Tallaght. A cost-rental scheme is now being developed by Monaghan County Council, too.

In terms of community facilities, we will always work with local authorities. It is not simply about community facilities that are given directly through any one scheme. Local authorities will often ask us for funding for communal facilities in or around schemes, too. They might be directly part of those schemes. They could be sporting facilities, playgrounds or whatever the case may be. What is there will not always directly reflect what will happen on the ground. Facilities may already be on site from other schemes and-----

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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This is something that will have to be looked at. As we increase the delivery of cost-rental housing, we must ensure that sufficient community leisure facilities are provided within those schemes.

Turning to Uisce Éireann's capital allocation, the 2024 Estimate was €1.03 billion, while that for 2025 is just under €1 billion. I estimate there is roughly a 4% fall. I am surprised at this, given Uisce Éireann's statements about the need for increased funding in terms of critical housing infrastructure. The Minister might comment on this aspect.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Uisce Éireann has non-voted funding as well, so it is often about the balance between the different funding streams. I assure the Deputy that Uisce Éireann will be getting a very substantial increase in funding through the NDP. It is essential and we will be ensuring that happens.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I have one quick point. I see the amount of funding under the heritage heading. As the Minister will know, I come from the midlands. The Estimate amount for peatlands restoration projects is €14 million, which seems quite minimal. I know there is the just transition fund, which is separate, contributing to projects, but €14 million seems minimal for the significant amount of work that needs to be done to restore, preserve and manage the boglands for the future. Anecdotally, much of the land that became the peatlands used by Bord na Móna were actually signed over by a significant number of landowners at no cost, and there is no compensation now that we are restoring it. In some cases, we are causing flooding on the lands of neighbouring landowners. A greater amount of money should be in place to fund the restoration and conservation of the peatlands. This was a part of our national heritage and it has now been ended, especially with Bord na Móna having closed the Shannonbridge and Lough Ree power stations and the cessation of the cutting of turf.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The restoration of the peatlands is a shared island initiative as well. I was up at the North-South Ministerial Council only a few weeks ago and there was a discussion on this topic. I am happy to engage with the Cathaoirleach around the funding allocation, what needs to be done and ensuring the work is carried out appropriately.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister. We will take one straight question from each member. Each has 20 seconds. We will start in the order we began. I call Deputy Hearne.

Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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The concept of affordable housing for elderly people was mentioned. Given we know many elderly people would not qualify for it, especially in terms of renting, has this aspect been explored and the possibility of delivering it examined?

On student accommodation, and while I understand it is under the remit of a different Department, does the Minister have any comment on providing affordable housing for students?

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We might take the four questions one after the other.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Some local authorities have written to their elected members to tell them they have allocated - the phrase used is "exhausted" - all of their social housing acquisition funding for this year. Fingal County Council wrote to TDs and councillors last week. If a local authority has allocated and exhausted all the funding allocated for this year and goes to the Department seeking additional funding or access to CAS or SHIP for acquisitions between now and the end of the year, is there a mechanism whereby these requests can at least be considered so that cases that may emerge between now and December are not automatically refused because the funding allocated has been fully committed?

Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am straying a little outside the funding elements, I suppose, but many of the delays in planning have been addressed, to be fair, or great work is certainly in progress there, but from what I see, judicial reviews remain the big potential delay in many schemes. The Planning and Development Act 2024 addresses this issue to an extent, but I think more needs to be considered. Is there an intention to look at this aspect further?

Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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The Minister mentioned how local authorities were bringing houses up to a very high standard. I believe they have no choice in doing so. From the Minister's remarks, I think this situation could be different. I agree with him. I have seen some local authority houses where good doors and other stuff were stripped out completely and just dumped and the properties were totally revamped. Is there a need for that? If there is not, local authorities should be made aware. I agree with bringing houses up to a standard where new people and new families can move in. The houses should be at a high standard, but there is no need to go to the extremes of what it is costing to bring them back into use.

Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Will the Minister fund and resource local authorities to start building houses directly, including social, affordable and cost-rental houses? It is all being subcontracted out now. I think the local authorities need to start building houses. Even doing this on a small scale would help. Will the Minister also fund the local authorities to have the staff to turn around all these boarded-up and vacant properties? They belong to and are owned by the State.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the members very much for their questions. Working backwards, I want local authorities to be building. Some are doing it quite successfully. Meath County Council, for example, has a fantastic record and we want to see it doing even more. Other local authorities not far from County Meath have a very poor record of self-building. I worry about the local authorities relying on Part V housing and affordable housing because they are not building up that self-build capacity and skill set that were lost through decisions that were made and the consequences of same. Local authorities now building up that experience and skill set are providing themselves with a robust situation should the economic conditions change in future. They will have that skill set in place. I used the example of County Donegal, which does not really have that much of a private sector going in terms of building new houses. It does not really have an active affordable housing undertaking. If the economic situation changed and local authorities like that were not building, they would suddenly find themselves in a very serious situation in terms of being able to deliver social housing.

Turning to the issue of voids, I would really be leaning on local authorities not to be spending large amounts of time in terms of getting voids turned around. Between 2014 and 2023, €360 million was provided to local authorities to return to use more than 23,000 vacant properties. Significant funding was given to the local authorities to bring historical properties back into play. They needed big funding to do it. Now, though, the local authorities should be able to manage their stock with their rental income.

On the topic of judicial reviews, we have a section in the Planning and Development Act 2024 - I forget the specific section number - in this regard and we will be commencing it in the next couple of weeks, certainly before the end of July.

Commencing that part is important and we will be doing that. There is not one local authority that has drawn down all of its tenant in situ funding. In fact, only seven or eight have drawn more than 50% of their funding.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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If they have committed it, would the Minister be open to exploring additional funding? There is a gap between committing and drawing down.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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No local authority should be saying that the scheme is closed to applications. The tenant in situ scheme was never open for applications. That is not how it works.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I am not looking to have a row with the Minister. I am just saying that three large local authorities - Cork, Dublin city and Fingal - have informed their members in writing that all funding is now committed and no new applications of any kind can be considered. If any of those local authorities approached the Department, would it be open to a discussion on the matter? It is reasonable request.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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It worries me that those local authorities are even using the word "applications". It was never meant to be a scheme where people applied to use it via landlords or tenants. It was for the local authority to identify situations where having exhausted social housing opportunities, such as HAP-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That is a "No", Minister. Even if they come back to the Department, it is a "No".

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We are always open to any local authority coming to us on an individual basis. There is never a situation where the scheme is closed-----

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister is not open to discussing additional funding for social housing acquisitions.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We have to bring it to a finish.

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The scheme is always being kept under review. We are only in July. I have never said that this is the end of the road for the entire year. We are always keeping this under review, but we need local authorities to do their bit.

In fairness to Deputy Hearne, I have not responded to his contribution. On the issue of affordable housing for the elderly, the Minister of State, Deputy Kieran O'Donnell, is examining that. Deputy Hearne is 100% right. What we are seeing now is a new cohort of people reaching retirement who have rented all their lives. That is an issue. The Minister of State is looking at what sort of schemes can be used. Our Department is engaging with the Department of further education on the provision of student accommodation. We have a very large cohort of students who are renting in the private sector. The ideal place for them is in purpose-built student accommodation. We are working with the Department of further education to see how we can help them deliver that type of accommodation. Student accommodation near a university is a winner for everybody, as it frees up houses for the private sector for those who need them.

Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister and his officials for assisting the committee as its members consider the Revised Estimates. I propose that we go into private session to discuss the business of the committee. Is that agreed? Agreed.