Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 2 October 2025
Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Estimates for Public Services 2025
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised)
2:00 am
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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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 our public meetings.
Today the select committee is required to consider the Further Revised Estimate in respect of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage - Vote 34. I welcome the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, James Browne TD, and his officials and Deputy John Cummins, Minister of State with responsibility for local government, to the meeting. We appreciate the comprehensive briefing material which was provided by the Department for today's discussion. It has been circulated to members.
Before we start, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the House as regards reference 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, and it is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
I now invite the Minister and the Minister of State to make their comments on the Further Revised Estimate.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the opportunity to discuss with the select committee my Department's Further Revised Estimate for 2025. I am joined by John Cummins TD, Minister of State with responsibility for local government and planning, and the following officials from my Department: Ms Marguerite Ryan, assistant secretary for corporate support; Mr. Paul Benson, assistant secretary for social housing delivery; and Ms Emer Dalton, head of housing finance and delivery co-ordination.
In July of this year I met with the committee to discuss the 2025 Revised Estimate for my Department in the round. At that session we also discussed the Votes for Tailte Éireann and An Coimisiún Toghcháin. We had detailed and constructive engagement on the full allocation of funds for my Department on that occasion. I very much appreciate that the committee has convened at short notice to consider this Further Revised Estimate and I will accordingly keep my introductory remarks short and focused on the particulars of this change to the allocation to my Department, which arises as a result of the transfer of marine environment function from my Department to the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment; transfer of property services regulation functions to my Department from the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration; and the allocation of an additional €696 million in capital funding to Vote 34.
The programme for Government included a commitment to transfer the Property Services Regulatory Authority, PSRA, and the Property Services Appeals Board, PSAB, to my Department. This transfer was effected on 1 August, and the Further Revised Estimate will accordingly transfer the associated budget of €4.256 million from Vote 24 - Justice, Home Affairs and Migration to Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The committee is likely aware of the very important role of the PSRA. It is an independent authority whose role is principally to license and regulate property services providers, namely, auctioneers, estate agents, letting agents and management agents, under the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011. The role of the PSAB, established under the same Act, is to hear appeals against certain decisions which may be taken by the PSRA, including those relating to licensing, the investigation of complaints or the imposition of sanctions on a property services provider. Property services providers play a vital role in the functioning of the housing market, and the integration of the PSRA and the PSAB into the broader housing infrastructure will facilitate the achievement of our shared goal of a healthy and fair national housing market.
Also on 1 August, and in line with the programme for Government, the marine environment unit was transferred from my Department to the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment. The Further Revised Estimate reflects this transfer and reduces Vote 34 by €7.274 million. This transfer will consolidate relevant marine functions under the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment and promote the protection and restoration of our marine environment. My Department will continue to work closely with the marine environment unit on matters relating to our remaining marine roles under the water framework directive and the bathing water directive, as well as marine functions of the National Parks and Wildlife Service in respect of the EU birds and habitats directive and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. Both transfers were the culmination of months of work by officials in the sending and receiving Departments and across the Government. I acknowledge the smooth transition and wish all transferring units the best of luck in their new configurations.
Turning to the question of additional capital funding, the Estimate that I set before the committee in July detailed my Department’s budget for 2025. This totalled €8.6 billion for the year, comprising €3.3 billion in current funding and nearly €5.3 billion on the capital side. This was supplemented by €165 million in proceeds from the local property tax, making funds of €8.8 billion available across Vote 34 this year. In addition, the total gross provision for Tailte Éireann in 2025 is nearly €91.2 million, with a further €11.8 million for An Coimisiúin Toghcháin. This represents a very substantial element of overall Government expenditure in 2025 and is instrumental in funding core areas of activity under the remit of my Department, particularly in the areas of housing, water, planning, local government and heritage. The Further Revised Estimate before the committee today covers substantive additional capital funding of €696 million for the housing programme. Accordingly, 2025 will see continued record investment in housing.
Overall, almost €7.5 billion in capital funding is being provided through a combination of Exchequer resources, investment by the Land Development Agency and lending by the Housing Finance Agency. This provision includes over €1.4 billion in additional capital funding that has been agreed by the Government this year to support a range of housing programmes. Specifically, the additional capital funding under discussion today will accelerate the delivery of social, affordable and cost-rental homes by local authorities and approved housing bodies, continue to build a robust delivery pipeline for new homes, support a significant programme of second-hand acquisitions for priority categories of need, including tenant in situ acquisitions and protect vulnerable households facing precarious living situations and homelessness, bring vacant homes back into residential use and support homeowners under the defective concrete blocks scheme.
A total of €250 million of the €696 million in additional funding relates to the temporary development contribution waiver scheme, which has now ended. That scheme was part of approved measures to incentivise the activation of increased housing supply and help reduce housing construction costs through the introduction of time-limited arrangements for the waiving of local authority section 48 development contributions. The overall capital investment will also allow us to continue to build on the progress achieved since the publication of Housing for All, with over 37,400 social homes and over 14,500 affordable housing solutions delivered by the end of quarter 1 of 2025.
I have kept my remarks as brief as possible and focused specifically on the issue at hand in today’s meeting, the Further Revised Estimate for Vote 34. I will, of course, be happy to deal with matters that members wish to raise and to revert to the committee if I do not have the details with me today.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Thanks, Minister. Members should note that Deputy Shane Moynihan is substituting for Deputy Séamus McGrath, Deputy Ó Murchu is substituting for Deputy Gould and Deputy Ó Muirí is substituting for Deputy Cooney. The speaking rota has been circulated. Deputy Ó Broin is first on the list and he has ten minutes.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister and his team for the detailed briefing documents. First, I do not understand why the €250 million for the development levy waiver scheme has gone into subhead A3, local authority housing. Obviously, local authorities would have otherwise collected that development levy and that would have been used as part of the general Government funds. Surely that is not the correct place for it. This is not just a technical matter and I will explain why I have a concern about its presentation here in a second.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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It was just a technical decision to put it in there but I will get the Deputy a more detailed answer.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Am I correct in saying that it is not money for the delivery of social housing and is simply to compensate the local authorities for the loss of development levies to the tune of €250 million?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The reason that is important is that the total spend under subhead A3 last year was €1.851 billion. When we take out the €250 million for the development levy waiver, which strictly speaking is for other purposes, the actual amount of money that is being allocated this year for local authority housing is €1.6 billion, so it is less than last year. The Minister is significantly increasing the capital advance leasing facility, CALF, so there will be some compensation there in terms of overall social housing output but even when we take into account the CALF increase, from a spend last year of €440 million to a total allocation of €710 million this year, the actual overall increase in funding for social housing delivery is only €83 million, between what was spent last year and what is now allocated. However, the Minister needs to significantly increase overall output to get to his target of 10,000 this year How is that going to be possible? Is it that there are going to be dramatically fewer acquisitions, so more money will be spent on new builds, or is there still €200 million to €300 million of a gap between what is allocated and the actual costs of meeting the target?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Our very clear intention is to deliver as many as possible and we are confident in that. If a situation arises where additional funding is needed, it will be sought but I do not expect or anticipate that will be the case.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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This is the second Revised Estimate since December but it is the third capital announcement that the Minister has made. The challenge here is that the total output of new-build social homes last year funded under this subhead was 7,860. A very large proportion of the 1,500 acquisitions would have come from that fund as well, although not all of them because some of them would have been capital acquisitions scheme, CAS, acquisitions. The social housing target has gone up by 1,000 new builds this year so that means the Minister needs to deliver 2,140 extra new builds this year to meet the target, but he is only allocating an extra €83 million over what he spent last year. I accept that there is going to be a difference in the acquisitions but if the Minister hits the 10,000 new-build target, he is going to need a Supplementary Estimate after the budget, before the end of the year. Why would he not just make provision for it now if he is confident about meeting the targets? I do not understand. It would seem to me that there is somebody, maybe not the Minister, somewhere in the system who does not have confidence that the targets will be met and that is why, in the Revised Estimate for December, the Minister is €400 million or €500 million short on the social housing side. Obviously, he got the extra funding and I am not criticising that, but there is still a big shortfall there. It could be, based on my conservative estimations, €200 million to €300 million. Is the Minister saying that he might need a Supplementary Estimate before the end of the year for that to get to the figure of 10,000 new-build social homes?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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That will be assessed as we get closer to the end of the year. It may the case that some funding will not be drawn down until we are into the new year. The key point is-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Does the Minister mean a carry-over and that he will use less of the money than what was allocated?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Whatever funding is needed to deliver what housing can be delivered, that funding will be made available.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister is confident that he is going to deliver the targets. Does he accept that there is not enough money in the pot right now to fund all of those, based on last year's outturn or output? If he is to deliver the 10,000 homes, he will need extra cash. That is a fair assumption, is it not?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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It will depend on the prices and what the demand for that funding will be too. Once the year's outturn has been completed and the delivery has been completed, we can assess the situation. Trying to predict at this point exactly what the drawdown will be is-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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It is not so much a question of the drawdown. We know the number of units that were delivered under that subhead last year and we know the cost of those. We know that the cost of both acquisitions and new builds has increased. If the Minister is going to deliver 2,140 extra new builds this year over last year, he is going to need more than an extra €83 million. I am not having a row with the Minister. I am just asking him to accept that if he hits the 10,000 figure, he is going to need more than that €83 million.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy will be aware that expenditure does not always neatly fit into a 12-month period of delivery. Some, such as CALF, is forward funded and there will always be a question with local authorities as to when they actually finalise contracts, draw down funds and so on. It is never as neat having a target of X and simply multiplying that out by the cost of those houses.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, but each year the Minister has been increasing the overall output of social housing. Admittedly, last year there were fewer units than the year before but there were still more than in the years before that. Each year, the overall expenditure should increase, whereas the local authorities currently have around €200 million less than what they spent last year. That is a fact, based on the Minister's figures.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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At the end of the year and into the start of next year, we will assess what has been requested from the local authorities and what has been delivered and then we will have a very clear picture. If there is a shortfall, it will be very clear at that point. As I said, the delivery of housing does not always neatly fit into one year.
At this point in time, it would be quite difficult to make any such extrapolations.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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We know there was very strong resistance from the Department of Finance and the Department of public expenditure and reform to the allocation of both this additional Revised Estimate and the one earlier in the year. We know that because of freedom of information documentation that I received from the Minister's Department. It seems that it was quite significant in that, according to the FOI documentation, the Minister had to go to the Taoiseach and the Taoiseach had to circumvent resistance from those two other Departments. Why were they resistant to providing the funding that was required to meet the Government's own targets and plan? What was their point of resistance?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I would not be able to speak to their mindset.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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But the Minister did have to go to the Taoiseach and the Taoiseach did have to intervene. We know that from documents from the Minister's officials. I am not complaining about that. The more money that goes into public housing, I support, but there does seem to have been a very significant level of resistance within elements of the public service, possibly supported by their Ministers. The Minister present must have some sense of why that is the case, given that he was in the meeting rooms when this would have been discussed.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Absolutely. In fairness to the Department of public expenditure and the Department of Finance, they receive very significant demand from across Government and difficult decisions always have to be made. In my sense of it, they did not have any particular issue with housing. What they would have always said was that their difficulty was in balancing the demands from the different Departments for capital expenditure. Obviously, there is the grid, education and healthcare. In government, there is a pot of money and how that funding is divided is always a challenge.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Was it not the case that the housing plan essentially provided a form of multi-annual funding in the sense that the outgoing Government committed to a set amount of expenditure over the lifetime of the plan? There are annual targets and we know that local authorities and AHBs must work on multi-annual cycles, so everybody had visibility on the number of units that were to be funded and the overall size of the fund. Surely it is a real problem if the Minister is getting significant resistance to those commitments that his predecessor Government and predecessor Minister made public in the housing plan. Surely the whole point of that plan is to say that bit is ring-fenced for delivery and meeting targets, given that the Government says it is a priority.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Absolutely. With a new Government, the Department of public expenditure and reform was trying to assess what that funding was, what was available and how to meet that challenge. When you look at what actually ended up being the outturn, where about €1 in every €3 over the next five years is going to be spent on directly delivering housing or on infrastructure to facilitate the delivery of water, it is very clear that the support was there from the two Ministers.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Does the Minister accept that the delay in having that funding approved, and us only getting the Revised Estimates now, is going to impact on the delivery pipeline of the local authorities and approved housing bodies?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Financial certainty has only been provided in July and now in October. That is going to slow down the pipeline that would have otherwise been much further advanced if this had been settled in the Revised Estimates Volume last December.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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No, I do not believe it affected our delivery of housing.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister does not think any of those delays will have in any way delayed the delivery of those units, in some cases by six, 12 or 18 months, because the Government has delayed agreeing a total amount of money from last December through to October? Does the Minister think there was no delay as a result of that? When AHBs and councils are telling us that that has caused them a delay in the delivery of the pipeline, are they misleading us or are they not accurate?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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No, I do not believe it has led to a delay. We have an open call with AHBs, for example, so there is sometimes confusion between an application coming in and whether we decide to fund a project. Some seem to have the view or position, or misunderstand, that because they have put in an application, there is an entitlement to funding and, therefore, if they do not get the funding within a certain period, that is a delay. That is not necessarily a delay, though. We have taken the view of having an open call, which means we are almost certainly going to get applications well in excess of what the Department can fund at any one time, so we have to triage, assess and make decisions about funds. The fact that something is not funded does not necessarily mean a delay in the Department of housing's perspective.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I am out of time, Chair.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I thank everyone for attending. I have a couple of questions that relate to when the Minister was in the last day. Maybe he can explain to me and the public the overall figure that has been spent on housing. I want to deconstruct this a little bit because there is a level of spin, or whatever one wants to call it, in the Minister's statement that €8 billion a year is spent on housing. I asked about this the last day but I did not get satisfactory answers. Approximately €3.8 billion or €4 billion is allocated for capital, €1.5 billion for current and I understand that the rest of the €8 billion is LDA spending. That capitalisation is referenced. Will the Minister break down those figures? How much actual money is being spent on building new builds of social and affordable housing for 2025? Is there an estimate? Does the Minister have an approximate figure for that?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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As there is a bit of maths involved, I would not be able to do that at this short notice but I can attempt to get those numbers for the Deputy.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Yes, the information would be useful, even for the Government. The Taoiseach is saying that we have never spent as much money on housing but a lot of that money is being spent on other things. In the budget, for example, there is mention of estate regeneration, energy efficiency, mortgage allowances and the Residential Tenancies Board. There are a lot of things mentioned that do not actually build housing. We need to get an accurate figure for how much money is actually going into building social and affordable housing within the budget. We need to invest more in direct State building, so it would be extremely useful to get an accurate figure.
Has the Minister adjusted the figures for an inflation analysis? A certain amount is being put in this year, there is an increase and there is an output. Has the Department conducted an analysis? What has been the inflation cost? Is it reasonable? Has the budget increased over the last couple of years, adjusted for inflation? It is difficult to break down the figures, but my sense is that the real increase is less if we adjust for inflation and, particularly, construction costs.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We know that inflation in the construction industry, in particular, has driven up costs quite significantly. That has affected the viability challenge around the delivery and why we are having to make a certain amount of important decisions around facilitating the viability and, in turn, affecting the affordability for people to be able to purchase.
In terms of taking inflation into account, we will always have that issue. It can be quite challenging, as inflation can vary quite substantially from year to year. We have seen that ourselves over the last six or seven years, where inflation could be 2% for several years in a row, then spike quite quickly and go back down again. I am talking about general inflation and not construction inflation. It is something that any Department has to carry in a particular year when looking for capital funding.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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A figure was not mentioned. What are the inflation costs, for example, for projects that have come in over the last two years? What is the actual contribution of inflation to their cost versus the budget increase that is necessary to cover that?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The general construction inflation is known and is out there. For particular housing projects, it varies quite substantially depending on the nature of the scheme, its location, the nature of the contracts. How much of a particular project is actually inflation would always be an exceptionally difficult thing to judge. Let us say we agree a contract with, for example, an AHB that has come in and priced a project for the delivery of 300 properties, and it says how much is needed from the Department to deliver that.
We need to account for how much of it in each particular year is inflation or a profit for whatever person is delivering it. It would be very difficult to microanalyse any contract assigned to this degree or level. We do know the national inflation that happens in construction and we are always very conscious of it.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I suppose it is the issue of an increase in the expenditure allocation to housing automatically translating into more units but if inflation costs are increasing beyond what the increased allocation is then, similar to what Deputy Ó Broin said, we will not actually achieve an increase in units. This is something that needs to be in the public domain and in the arguments and discussions about the budget. It is not just a case that we need more housing delivered. There has been an increase in construction costs and, therefore, to get an increased output, there will need to be a significant increase in the budget allocation. It links to the question regarding the Department of public expenditure coming back to the Department of housing and stating what is not allowed and what is being allocated.
I was struck by what the Minister just said regarding a project's funding depending on the Department putting out a call and getting an excess of applications. In a housing emergency and in this situation, on what basis would the Department turn down a project? Is it that it literally does not have a sufficient budget to allocate to all of the applications or are there applications that have problems?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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There could be all sorts of reasons for turning down a project. We have to examine the value for money of any project. For any project, the Department has to look at governance issues, the viability of the project and, if there are developers involved, the capacity of those developers to deliver. There could be all sorts of reasons as to why a project may be delayed. The reality is the Department of housing does not have a bottomless pit of money. We have to live within what funding is there. We will always push the envelope as much as possible.
It may also be the case that, if we have a number of different projects, some of them may be the wrong mix for an area, the wrong size or the wrong specification. There might be two projects for funding in a similar area and one might be a far better quality application than the other, has all of the documentation in place or whatever the case might be. We work with AHBs and local authorities to ensure their applications are of good quality. At the end of the day, a Government has to live within its budget and so does the Department. We have certain areas, such as homelessness, that simply have to be demand led. We have to provide the services. When it comes to capital expenditure, though, we do have a budget.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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The public would be quite surprised at this because we were told that money was no object.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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No, not that there is a budget but that decisions are being made not to fund projects and it is simply a case that we do not have enough money. The Government has said and is saying that money is not the problem and there is no lack of money. We hear this over and over but what the Minister is saying follows up on what we have heard and what we hear from AHBs, which is that there are ongoing delays in the approval of projects, there are projects that should get funding that are not getting funding, or one part of a social housing project is being funded but there is a delay in the CREL part. The AHBs say there are delays and the private sector is also saying there are delays. The Department of public expenditure has written to the Department on this. Clearly there is an issue of a lack of money to invest in social and affordable housing.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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There are very few projects that would not get approved. There are not delays but it cannot be a case that an application comes in tomorrow and we simply give the green for go. There has to be a value for money assessment. There has to be an appropriate assessment in terms of local authority needs for a particular area. We have to ensure the governance is there, otherwise I would be back in here-----
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Let us say the Department does all of that and the project is fine and value for money but then it says there is not enough money in the pot to invest in it.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We only have to look at the level of quality housing that has been delivered. Considering the level of money the Department of housing has been managing in terms of funding AHBs to deliver projects, for example, very few projects have had an actual delivery issue. This is a credit to the AHBs but it is also a credit to the Department of housing working with the AHBs to ensure these projects are of quality, of value and needed. It is not a case of simply approving anything that comes in. I do not accept that there are delays. There are processes that need to be followed. If we were not doing this, we would be back in here and I would be answering for why I was not ensuring value for money, quality assessments were not being carried out and those processes were not in place. If we were not doing that, I have no doubt we would have incidences, unfortunately, as we do in any walk of life, of money being misapplied.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for his presentation and I welcome the Revised Estimate. I am interested in the breakdown for the LDA. The LDA is very active in my area of Clongriffin and Baldoyle, effectively working in partnership with Dublin City Council, but in the main, it is picking up and completing a substantial phase of development that was left undone as a result of the Celtic tiger bust. It is an area that has great potential. The local community is very supportive of the LDA being involved but it needs to be funded. Is there is a breakdown of the budget for the LDA?
One of the issues the LDA will have is ensuring the provision of community facilities in its developments. Historically, the local authorities have done this through the provision of development levies. Does the Minister have a view as to how in the medium term this will be done with the LDA so that it can plan, with the local authorities, elements such as community centres and primary care centres in partnership with the HSE? What do we see in the long and medium term as a funding mechanism for the LDA to make sure all of this is done, as well as building very welcome communities such as Clongriffin?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Ó Muirí. The LDA is absolutely essential to housing delivery by the State, and its capacity to deliver has been increasing quite significantly. In terms of community support, it works very closely with local communities and we see very good examples of this. It is up to the Government on a wider level to ensure elements such as primary care centres are located in the areas of need. The HSE will follow populations and need. It has our numbers and we work closely with the Department of Health to ensure that the facilities that are needed follow. As Deputy Ó Muirí knows, this can vary quite substantially with healthcare. My county has a very large older population retiring down there, which puts an additional need on our healthcare services.
I can get Deputy Ó Muirí details on individual LDA projects but I would not be able to speak on a particular individual project.
Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I get the issue with the HSE and primary care. I do not need the answer now but, in the long term, I am interested in the question of a community facility within a substantial LDA development. I hope these developments will get bigger and more substantial. What is the mechanism by which the Department sees community facilities being funded and delivered? Perhaps it is information I can get back in writing. I do not need a straight answer now because it is not directly related to the Estimates, but it is an issue in my area and I will be interested to hear in due course.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I am happy to engage with Deputy Ó Muirí on this. As he is aware, the LDA is funded separately from the Department of housing, although we provide some Exchequer funding to it and we work closely with it. The team at the LDA is quite good at working with other Departments on this need. Deputy Ó Muirí is right on the need for co-ordination with a local community as we increase housing delivery in an area or its population increases.
It is essential that community facilities necessary to meet that population increase and that population make-up be provided. Young populations need schools and older populations often need greater primary care services.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The Minister will be able to follow up specifically with them and get back to the Deputy.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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The croí cónaithe funding scheme has been hugely successful, especially in the likes of County Louth. What is the uptake and how many more applications does the Minister anticipate, given the extra funding?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, is going to answer that.
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Butterly. The additional provision in the Revised Estimates Volume is to provide for claims yet to be paid to local authorities in lieu of the development levy, which ended at the end of last year. Is the question related to the vacant property refurbishment grant or the development levy waiver?
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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The vacant property refurbishment grant.
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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It will provide for an additional 660 refurbishment grants, and we expect the total drawdown over the course of this year to be over 2,000 vacant property refurbishment grants. Obviously, that is very significant. The scheme that has been introduced by the Government has been very successful. There will have to be further provision in next year's Estimate. The additional money will bring the total to €118 million for this year.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Due to the fact that it has been so successful, and the Minister of State said that next year we will have to make further provision for that, is there going to be an expansion of the plan that will, perhaps, allow for bigger drawdowns or larger grants, particularly in regard to over-the-shop refurbishments or buildings in town centres?
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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We have the scheme that is there. It increased from €30,000 to €50,000 for the vacant grant and from €50,000 to €70,000 for the dereliction element of that grant. It can be combined with energy grants, as the Deputy knows, of up to €27,000. That is nearly €100,000 in grant support towards turning a derelict property into a home. It is very significant. There have been over 12,000 applications under the scheme and over 8,600 approvals as of the end of quarter 1 of this year. I do not have the quarter 2 figures yet. It is demand led. There are applications coming in all the time. It is a very significant grant that is being provided to support people in getting their first home and bringing a vacant or derelict property back into productive use. Obviously, we keep every scheme under review but there is significant support in what is provided.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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County Louth has a very large rural base, notwithstanding Drogheda and Dundalk, the two largest towns in the country. I often feel that we do not get bang for our buck because of that density issue. I have seen the grant really work in the rural areas, in the classic 60s- or 70s-era bungalow being brought back to life. It is a fabulous initiative, because it is so hard to get planning permission in rural areas. It is a way of keeping the young people or bringing them back into the rural areas and regenerating them. There is no doubt the investment made by the Government over recent years in rural development has been significant and we can see the benefits of it. I have to acknowledge Louth County Council's work in following up on vacant and derelict buildings. The likes of Dunleer, Castlebellingham, Drogheda and Dundalk high vacancy rates. We always talk about getting bustling town centres or city centres back, but perhaps we need a mixture of commercial properties and homes, particularly in towns like Dunleer or Ardee, where maybe it is just not commercially viable to reopen a shop, but it could turn into a very fine home. If there are two or three homes in a town centre like Ardee, sooner or later somebody is going to reopen a shop. The real barrier to that is the cost of that renovation because, obviously, the property prices are much higher in a town like Ardee than they are for a bungalow in Togher. I would welcome any initiative that would review the proportionality and the percentage of the grants made available, to revive those town centres with houses as well as commercial entities.
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I hear what the Deputy is saying and she has made the points very well. We have the commercial-to-residential exemption from planning as well, and we are undertaking a wider review within the Department with regard to exempted development to make it easier to convert those commercial units into residential. I appreciate the points the Deputy is making on the grant supports, but it is very significant. I understand 226 grants have been approved in Louth so far under the vacant property refurbishment grant. That is very significant. It is 226 individuals or families being supported to turn a vacant property into a permanent home for themselves. It is a very successful scheme, and we look forward to even more applications coming in.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I will second what you were about to say, which is that I welcome more grants.
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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It is demand led, obviously. As more applications come in, that gives us a headache in terms of ensuring we have the appropriate level of funding available, but it is an excellent scheme and one we support.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Totally, because, as the Minister of State said, 220 is a significant number and the fact it has been so hugely successful will mean we will always have our hands out for more.
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Of course. I thank the Deputy.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Does Deputy Butterly have any more questions?
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I have just one with regard to affordable housing. I asked it the other day. It relates to the single-stage approval process. We got a commitment from officials that it would be October or November but now that we have the Minister before us, he might expand on that.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The single stage is where we bring the four-stage process to an end, which did add a certain level of complication. It was probably used as an excuse by some people as well. Nonetheless, I am great believer in simplifying things as much as possible. The commitment is to have that process effectively activated in October or November. We are running through that transition right now, but I expect to have that up and running by the end of November at the latest. That is my expectation at the moment. However, the aim is to do it even more quickly than that because it is critical for those local authorities that are driving on and want to do even more, more quickly, and also those local authorities that have not been very strong on delivering housing, whether that is a result of fear or of unnecessarily relying on the section 4 process. Either way, we should move to that as quickly as possible. That is in everyone's interest.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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It absolutely is. Even though I always talk about County Louth as a regional spokesperson, I get people in from Cork talking about the Cork tower, and about how part of it is flying along and the other half is not. I welcome the fact this process is going to come in within a matter of months because from the feedback and representations I am getting, it is the huge delays in the process that are killing it. We will hold the Minister to that.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I want to go back to the detailed Revised Estimates Volume that was laid before the House on Tuesday this week. I want to refer to it to make things easier. One of the things that is helpful about the Estimates for social housing is that there are very clear targets. We know the target for new builds, acquisitions, leasing, HAP and RAS.
We have never had clarity on the individual targets for affordable housing schemes. We know from the Government's housing plan that the target for this year is 6,400 new-build units. The figure of 6,400 units on page 2 of the REV, under public service activity outputs, refers to a number of subheads, A28, A38, A32 and A35. What I hope the Minister can do, because it is directly related to how we then track allocations versus outputs and delivery, is to give us a breakdown within that figure of 6,400 units of the following: cost rental, in both the LDA and AHB sectors, affordable purchase units in the local government sector and the first homes scheme. This last aspect is interesting because in the previous REVs, first homes scheme units were loan approvals. That language has now changed and it looks like it is going to be purchases rather than approvals because it refers to "homes delivered". I ask the Minister to clarify that aspect.
Just for the purposes of scrutinising, I think we need to get to the stage of having the same degree of clarity on affordable housing targets and outputs as we currently have on social housing. Maybe we can start with this question.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I think this is the answer to what the Deputy is asking about, but if it is not, he can clarify. The 2025 target is a total of 6,400 units for affordable housing delivery. We have 1,600 local authority affordable purchases.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That within that 6,400 total.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Correct. It is 1,600 units. The LDA affordable purchase figure is 500 units.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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They are separate to the 1,600 units. Those will not be like the ones in Shanganagh, where they are sold through the local authority but delivered by the LDA. Are these on top of the 1,600 units or are they included in it?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I think they are included in it. I can get the Deputy clarification, but my understanding is that they are.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Okay, so it is a total of 1,600 affordable purchases by the local authorities and the LDA.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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No, I apologise. I misunderstood the Deputy's question. The LDA affordable purchases are on top of the 1,600 units. It is 2,100 units in total.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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So, it is 500 units on top of the 1,600 units.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, 2,100 units is the subtotal there. The first homes shared equity scheme, then, accounts for 2,000 units.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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What is the figure for cost-rental units?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We have local authority cost-rental units of 200 for 2025, AHB cost-rental units of 850 and LDA cost-rental units of 1,300.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The total affordable purchase and vacancy figure is 4,100 units and the total for cost rental is 2,300 units. That gets us to the 6,400 units.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, perfect. Even in the budget book when the budget is published, there is not that level of clarity because, for example, cost-rental units are mixed in together. We have never had an official target published for the affordable purchase area, so that is really helpful. If they are published, though, and if the targets are met, the Minister could point to them and say he met them, and if they are not, then I can come here and ask him to explain why. That is very helpful.
Turning to the land acquisition fund, I cannot see it when I am looking at the REV. Is it in the local government section or in the housing section? I know there is not extra money in this REV. I was just comparing the July one with this one and trying to find the fund. Which subhead is it?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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It is A3 but I am told it is funded already.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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It comes out of A3.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Okay. Again, that is a little bit like the development levy waiver. It is under social housing but it is for land acquisition rather than for the building of the homes. Is that it?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I am sorry, Deputy. Can I get that question again?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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No, it is okay. Just so I can understand it, there is a land acquisition fund, to which money was allocated this year and in previous years. Which subhead does this funding fit under? Is the Minister saying it is under A3, local authority housing?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Generally, as I understand it, it comes in under the build costs of any particular project. It was taken out and put into the housing statistic a couple of years ago.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Okay, but let us take the example of a local authority drawing down money from A3 for a building project. There would be a land element to that and that makes complete sense. Separately, however, funding was set aside. The former Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, brought a Supplementary Estimate in his last year where, because there had been an underspend in the building of social homes and to prevent the money being lost, it was put into a fund for AHBs and local authorities to buy land. It might not necessarily have been connected to a specific housing project at the time of purchase. Where is this funding? Is it still in A3 or is it somewhere else?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I told it is with the Housing Agency, so it is not reflected in the REV. It is reflected in the funding of the Housing Agency.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Would that be in the agency's subhead here or in a separate account?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That is really helpful. I have a couple of small points to pick up on pieces of the REV. The last time we spoke about State regeneration, one of the points I made to the Minister was that Dublin City Council, in terms of its proposals for the refurbishment of flat blocks from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, which are some of the poorest quality rental accommodation in the State, had been told the density would have to increase as per the national planning framework, NPF. What I am hearing now is that the Department's position has shifted slightly to that of a density count decrease. In the big flat complexes like Oliver Bond House, one of the difficulties is that if we are going to bring those 1930s and 1940s corporation flats up to even basic modern standards, density will have to be reduced. I ask the Minister again to reconsider this element. Clearly, if there is a possibility of increasing density on the site, by adding a floor as was done in St. Mary's Mansions, or if there is some infill, that would be great. It is still a barrier, though, to fixing the flats. As the largest landlord in the country, the State has a responsibility to ensure that it abides by the standards we expect every other landlord to abide by. Can the Minister give a commitment that he will look at this again? If additional density on the site is not possible and if there can only be reduced density to meet standards, can the Minister confirm that will not be a barrier to bringing those flats up to the standards legally required?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I do not believe that is an actual requirement, but I will take another look at it.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Unfortunately, it is a legal requirement under one of the national policy objectives of the NPF. There is an explicit NPF obligation that regeneration funding has to be linked to an increase in density, although that is very unhelpful. Even insofar as requiring no reduction in density, Dublin City Council has been told that is a requirement for specific developments. I know there is some discussion around whether it could have additional density on an adjacent site. That is fine, but it confuses the matter, which is that these flats have to be brought up to modern standards. I am raising this issue because it will be a challenge to spend the money if the projects keep getting knocked back. I am just asking the Minister to look at this situation again to see if more flexibility can be provided, if that is okay.
Turning to defects, obviously, there is a significant increase in funding in this area. I welcome that. The problem is that replies from the Minister to recent parliamentary questions show there has still been a modest uptake in the scheme. Obviously, there are still the ongoing delays in the interim funding for fire safety. It is now €165 million, which is up from last year's spending of €69 million, which is not insignificant. Knowing what the Minister knows about the pipeline of expenditure, how confident is he that the €165 million is going to be spent this year? On current trends, it does not look like it will be spent.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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No, we are fairly confident it will be. We work closely, obviously, with the local authorities most specifically impacted in that regard. We are confident the money will be spent. We are seeing an increase in momentum in terms of that type of expenditure. We are fairly confident it will be spent.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I have a couple of quick things to cover. I very much welcome the transfer of responsibility for the Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011 and the Property Services Regulatory Authority to the Minister's Department. It is where it should always have been. It means that we can, hopefully, do some work on it. The Act is outdated and not fit for purpose. In the context of it being here in the document, is it the Minister's intention to initiate a reform of the legislation? Obviously, there needs to be public consultation, etc. Our committee is looking to have a hearing in the autumn on this issue. It is a really important area. Given we are moving to having far more higher-density developments, not just in the big cities but in towns as well, can the Minister give us a sense of the timeline of where the Department is with that? As part of that undertaking, could issues with the regulation of owner management companies, OMCs, and the regulation of property service managing agents also be part of a review? That is long overdue.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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A lot of this is just coming over to our Department. Before the responsibility is fully transferred, the Department of justice needs to complete its legislative work. It has the expertise, if you like. I took the view that if we suddenly brought everything across, it would lead to significant delays. The Department of justice, therefore, is completing its piece on the legislative side before responsibility for the Act comes over to us.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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When the Minister refers to the Department of justice's piece, what is that, for our information?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Department has been carrying out a review. I know that from when I was in that Department. It is going to carry out certain reforms. I will then look at the wider aspect of the Multi-Unit Developments Act 2011 as well, because it needs to-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Department of justice is going to finish its review and the Minister is saying it might then make some legislative changes on foot of that.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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In effect, what I want the Department of justice to do - and it will - is to finish out the legislative proposals it has.
They are very specific proposals. A wider review is needed - I fully agree with the Deputy on that - and I will carry out that wider review. I will not wait for the legislation to be completed to do that. I took the view that to bring that legislation over to our responsibility would simply lead to delays when people had been working on it. That wider review needs to happen.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Would the Minister be hopeful that he might initiate his element of that review next year? Is it in a spreadsheet or calendar somewhere? Does he have a notion of when that might start?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I will set that out in the housing plan in a little bit more detail. The specific piece with justice is the Mulcreevy issue, I think. There is a specific legislative piece anyway. The responsibility for the review is with myself and I will do that. I am very much aware of the issues around it.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I am out of time but I will come back in the next round.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Does the Deputy have another question?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I have more, but-----
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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It is only the two of us. If Deputy Ó Broin wants to continue, I will come back in.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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While we are on legislation, the comprehensive multi-unit development defects scheme and the legislation for that are relevant to the REV, in that that area of expenditure is ultimately going to increase and require the legislation. Is it the Minister's intention to bring a general scheme or a completed Bill forward and is there a timeline for that?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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That is mostly in respect of the apartment defects in Dublin.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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And pretty much every other county, unfortunately.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Every other county, too, but the largest number by far are in Dublin.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We are working on it at the moment. The pathfinder projects are out there. There have been a few challenges around those.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I am not particularly happy about that, but I think we are getting pretty much there now on the pathfinder projects. It was useful to do the pathfinder projects because it brought up issues that were not anticipated. We will get a little bit further on that.
In terms of legislation, we will complete the Bill. We are looking at that. I do not have a particular update but I will get one for the Deputy.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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It would be good to know first of all if it is going to be a general scheme or a Bill, and when. On the pathfinders and also the pilot scheme for the retrospective payments, which is coming out of the €118 million, am I right in saying that no money has still actually been drawn down on any of the pathfinders because of some of those challenges?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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That is my understanding, that no substantive funding has been drawn down.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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On the pilot for the retrospective payments, am I correct that no money has been drawn down on that side either?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I do not believe so but I will get the Deputy a definitive answer on that.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I got a very helpful parliamentary question reply on the outturn for last year's Vote. The one head that we did not get an outturn figure for was the croí cónaithe towns vacancy supports, the outturn for 2024. I am just wondering if Ms Ryan or anyone else on the team has the figure for the total spent on subhead A36 last year.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Yes. The REV for this year is now €118 million but I am keen to get the figure for the outturn last year.
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I am not sure if I have it. The total for this year will be €118 million. I will circulate the figure to the Deputy.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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While somebody is looking for that, there are now increasing demands on An Coimisiún Pleanála arising from the renewable energy directive III as well as other matters. In terms of additional funding for the staff of An Coimisiún Pleanála, there have been significant sanctions and the commission faces challenges in getting those staff. We are hearing from wind energy providers of an additional layer of concern that the planning resourcing requirements arising from the renewable energy directive III is going to be another call. Has that been factored into the Minister's discussions with his officials and An Coimisiún Pleanála about future resourcing requirements?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I will let the Minister of State with responsibility for planning take that.
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Staffing of An Coimisiún Pleanála has been ramped up very significantly, as the Deputy will appreciate. When we sat on this committee together, it was one of the issues that was raised consistently. I have to acknowledge the very significant workload that has gone into restructuring, reorganising and reconstituting An Coimisiún Pleanála from An Bord Pleanála. Two years ago, there were over 3,700 cases on hand in the board. As of last month, there were fewer than 1,400 cases on hand. Since the start of the year, every LRD application that has ended up with the board has been disposed of within the 16-week timeframe, which is a really good news story. Very significant progress has been made within An Coimisiún Pleanála and we will continue to provide support to it in its staffing and reorganisation. There has been significant improvement, as the Deputy will appreciate. I acknowledge the new chairman and director, who have done significant work.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The commission is actively recruiting and that is all very welcome. The one thing I would say is that a lot of it is in the context of the backlog, the changing nature of planning applications and also the other non-planning functions the commission has to deal with, including some of the appeals and so on. What we are hearing through my colleague Deputy Pa Daly and his outreach to the renewable energy sector is that there is now going to be an additional resource requirement arising specifically from that directive. I would like to hear some comfort that the Department is aware of that in terms of forward planning and that it is part of the mix in addition to what the commission has already got.
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Yes. Obviously, it is not for this REV but we are very aware of what the ask is there. We have engaged with the commission on it and it is a matter for the budget discussions that are ongoing at the moment. I acknowledge the additional workload that will be there for the commission, particularly around the area the Deputy has highlighted.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Obviously, there is no additional money for response maintenance and casual relets of voids. What I notice in the NOAC report that was published last week or early this week is that the 22-week average turnaround period, which is the real problem as opposed to the number of units, has now stretched out to 30-something weeks, which means we are going backwards. I appreciate some of this is the local authorities and their management but some of it is also the financing of it. In terms of the Department's efforts to get that average turnaround time down, some extra funding would be helpful to certain local authorities but are there other actions the Minister and Minister of State are going to take as part of the REV expenditure into next year to get that timeline down? It was too long at 22 weeks. Am I right that the current average has gone up to 30-something weeks?
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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This is something I am passionate about myself, as I know the Deputy is. I am focusing on it very significantly when I am going around to local authorities and meeting them. We are trying to place an increased focus and emphasis on vacancy and dereliction in general. For local authorities to have the authority to be able to be strict in imposing the likes of CPOs, they have to be efficient in turning around their own stock. We have some very good examples in that NOAC report. Wexford and Laois are below 1% in terms of vacancy. In my own local authority area in Waterford, we introduced a framework for turning around vacant properties many years ago. That is not standard practice across the sector. It should be. It is a way to drive efficiencies and reduce the turnaround time. We should not have a situation where local authorities are waiting for several council properties to be vacant for a period of time, bundling them together and going out for tender. That is no longer acceptable. I have a zero-tolerance approach in relation to turnaround times and vacancy across the local authority sector when we have such need out there.
We are totally on the same page.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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To finish that, it has gone from an average turnaround time of 22 weeks in the previous year to 35.56 weeks. The vacancy rate is actually quite small. The vacancy rate in the public housing sector is about half the vacancy rate in the general housing sector, and 1% is great, but even 2% is not the problem. The problem is the length of time. It is one thing for the Minister of State or I to say it is unacceptable. I am interested to know if it is by way of circular or some other mechanism. Insofar as the local authorities control elements of it, the Minister of State is right that the weighting and bundling of properties is crazy. There are issues which neither the Minister of State nor the local authorities control, such as Garda vetting times. We have noticed in south Dublin that Garda vetting can now take three months, depending on the local Garda station. That is not something the Minister of State can sort out, but he can certainly talk to the Minister for justice to see if he can use his influence. How is it that we are going to get these times down, other than us saying it is wrong? Is there policy guidance, a circular, or targets for local authorities?
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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There are a number of reasons for it, such as efficient turnaround of council properties and re-letting. Not all local authorities are using choice based letting, CBL. We want them to. We also want them to be actively be ready to allocate or have an allocated person for that property when the renovation is completed, rather than waiting for the renovation to be completed and then starting the allocation process. Some local authorities are very efficient in re-letting council properties. It is not always the length of time it takes to renovate the property. Sometimes it relates to the allocation process that is there in the background.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The NOAC figure includes all of that, from keys coming in to keys going back.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That includes Garda vetting and so on. Other than saying what we would like to happen, does the Minister of State intend to do something concrete, which he would have our support on, to get the local authorities in this space to become more efficient?
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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If the Deputy has some suggestions, I am more than happy to hear them. As he knows, I am going around the local authority sector and engaging with it. If he has some tangible suggestions, I am always open to accepting them.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I will accept that offer now and-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I will tell the Minister of State what I think needs to happen. A new circular needs to be issued. A target timeline needs to be set, reducing over a period of years. There needs to be more flexibility for funding. Some properties will require more than the maximum that can be provided, while others currently require less. There are issues of monitoring and reporting. We should not have to wait for a NOAC report a year and a half afterwards. If the Department set out biyearly monitoring in a circular, that would make the local authorities that want to do better do better, but the Department needs to give a little more too.
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate we are way over time. I expect something to come out of the local democracy task force in this respect. I want local authority members to be empowered to be able to interrogate their executives in local authorities so that they have comparable data to counties next door to them and around the place. If people are efficient in turning that around, they should not have to wait for 12 or 18 months to be able to say it and then for some executive member of the team to turn around and say it has improved in 2025 and that will be seen in next year's NOAC report. More real-time monitoring and publication of data is something that we will keep under review.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I have short questions, I hope, and then the Minister of State can elaborate with the answers. Will the Minister of State walk me through the local property tax and the self-funding model for the local authorities, please? Regarding defective concrete blocks, the Minister of State alluded to a scheme or Bill. Will that widen the criteria or eligibility to include people who have second homes or commercial properties, or will it always and only focus on residential? The first port of call for much planning is local authorities. It is an issue of resourcing there too because they have to deal with more complicated first-hand, first-step applications and a huge variety of them. Since Deputy Ó Broin opened the door to the local democracy task force, without anticipating what might come from it, where are we with timelines?
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I will address the local property tax first. There was a review of the baseline local property tax in 2024. Part of that baseline review was to ensure that every local authority got at least €1.5 million of an uplift. That increased the amount of local property tax from €353 million to €428 million, so it was an additional €75 million in the base for the local government sector. Obviously, a revaluation is under way at the moment regarding local property tax and the expected additional yield from that is €42 million. We have agreement from the Department of Finance to ring-fence that for the local government sector. That will be an additional €42 million to be retained within the local government sector. Local property tax is one of several areas of funding that funds local government. It only equates to about 6% of all funding, albeit an important part.
Regarding resourcing for planning, that is significant. We understand the challenges in our planning system. I referred to exempted development earlier. We are trying to remove things that do not need to be in the planning process in order to free up staffing resources within the local authority sector. In the ministerial action plan for planning resources, we ensured that there are 101 posts under phase one, 90 of which have been filled, and in January this year there was further approval for 112 posts, which were made up of 56 graduate planners and 56 staff officer posts. We are getting there. In the context of the budget, further resourcing for the sector is ongoing.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Regarding defects, in terms of defective concrete blocks-----
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Yes. At the moment, it is the domestic-----
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Is it specifically about the uplift or for the defective concrete blocks?
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I have had representations from people who have bought maybe defective concrete blocks. They have bought second homes or have holiday lets, or, worse, even commercial properties.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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In terms of widening the-----
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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If we are putting in additional funding, is it to widen the scheme to more households or will we be expanding it to include people where it is not the primary residence?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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There is no intention to widen it outside of those who are currently entitled to it. The legislation will be going to pre-legislative scrutiny soon. I will talk to Deputy Ó Broin to see if he is satisfied with it. I do not want to anticipate. The uplift is in there and I am anxious to get that done as quickly as possible. We are looking at tweaks to the scheme too but not widening it beyond those who are currently availing of it. It is more to try, in what way we can, to make it easier for those who are in the scheme to be able to use it.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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What about the local democracy task force timelines?
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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The timeline is to report in quarter 1 of next year. I would like to put on record the significant work being done by officials in the Department, by all of the actual task force itself and by the chair, Jim Breslin. I understand they are doing significant work across four thematic areas and I look forward to receiving that report in quarter 1 of next year.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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As the Minister of State raised the issue, our party is keen to get the amending legislation done as soon as possible. We would we be willing to waive pre-legislative scrutiny, obviously subject to seeing the content of it. It would be good to know if there is a timeline for that. My colleagues in Donegal, Mayo and Clare are raising this more regularly than I am, but the delay is concerning for folks. When the cap is raised, will people who have already got a grant award under the old cap be able to avail of it? For example, let us say I got a grant award last year, but by the time I get my quote in from my contractor, six, nine or 12 months have elapsed because of the delays in the bureaucracy of the scheme and therefore I am now facing today's prices rather than last year's prices. Is it simply a raising of the cap or is there something else? I might be really cheeky and ask the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, to give us an update on when we should expect to see the exempted development regulations come before the committee for scrutiny.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Regarding the waiver, I will need to talk to the Cathaoirleach of the committee as well.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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For us, that would be our view.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I think everybody would be motivated to do it as quickly as possible anyway. I intend to have that done quite quickly. There are one or two little niche areas and I am meeting the Attorney General on Friday afternoon to iron them out.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Could we get it this month, for example?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I would expect that it would come this month. My intention was to have it by now, to be honest, but there are one or two small technical areas that come up that are giving legal headaches and that is why I called a meeting with the Attorney General for Friday afternoon to actually get it bottomed out. The retrospective aspect would be in terms of the actual bills incurred. That is how it is being framed.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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What does that mean in plain English? It would not be applied retrospectively if a person has spent money but if a person has not spent the money it would be. Is that the case?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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No, if a person has already spent the money, it is backdated to March. We need to bottom out exactly what that will be. We can have that specific discussion as we get closer to it.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Even a briefing with the committee members before the publication would be helpful.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Yes, a briefing with the Department officials would allow us to tease out that and other questions.
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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On the exempted development piece, it would not be like the Deputy to be cheeky on a question like that.
My intention is to bring forward the exemptions on the slurry-storage piece imminently. There is significant importance to that in terms of the nitrates piece. We intend to group the exemptions going forward from there, because there is a significant body of work for the officials working on that at the moment.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Is that grouping them as they were in the publication?
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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It may be slightly different from what the public consultation was but it would make sense that the domestic exemptions will come together as a package and the infrastructure exemptions perhaps as a package. We are still working through that, as the Deputy will appreciate. There were over 900 submissions.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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No, I understand that it is super technical. I am not looking for it to be rushed, just to get it right. Will the domestic ones be this year or next year, given that it is now October?
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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The intention is for it to be this year.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I want to raise the issue of the indicative timeline for the housing plan. A number of members talked about additional money being put into the vacant property grants. I come from a rural county, Longford. On every boreen in the county I am beginning to see housing come back into use but unfortunately, in some of the towns, I still see a lot of derelict properties not being utilised. I know that previously the repair and leasing scheme was not being utilised to do what it was meant to do and bring those back into use. In the Minister of State's own county of Waterford a significant number of properties were delivered under that scheme. What are the thoughts on that? Are there any thoughts on funding for that as it has come up in numerous conversations on the lack of infrastructure? I will give the example of two towns in my own county, Ballymahon and Edgeworthstown, the second- and third-largest towns in the county. The wastewater treatment system capacity is insufficient. This means that no developments can be done. Yet we could have a developer come along with a developer package treatment, maybe supported by the Department of housing. This could be put in place until such time as the treatment plant is upgraded. Has any consideration been given to working with developers in this way, once what they would install is up to proper standards?
Deputy Ó Broin mentioned that the reletting period has increased from 32 to 35 weeks. Locally, we had voids and these are being upgraded. The local authority has found itself down a considerable number of million euro where it brought these voids up to current standards. However, the grant for this is €11,500. Has any consideration been given to increasing this grant for local authorities when it comes to upgrading any houses before they are relet?
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Regarding developer-led infrastructure around water and wastewater, we are having a lot of engagement with Uisce Éireann and the EPA. There are complications with it. Any proposals would need to be of a high standard because ultimately they would have to be taken over by Uisce Éireann, so they would have to meet its standards. We want to make sure those standards are clear for developers, so they know what they have to do. We are trying to get to a point of having rules or regulations of general application, so that you do not have to go through individual approvals for each project. There is also complication around discharge licences and the EPA and how we manage all of that. It is proving to be quite complicated, especially the environmental side of it, to ensure that anything delivered by the developer is actually fit for purpose and meets requirement, but that it is not so convoluted and complicated that it effectively makes it impossible for them to do it. We have been working quite hard on this and we will get there. We need to ensure that the environment is protected while also providing a mechanism for developers to be able to work. That is the challenge with the vacant properties.
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I gave figures to Deputy Butterly earlier of 8,000 approvals and the 12,000 applications. The quarter 2 outturn figures show 14,000 applications have been made, with 10,000 approvals. There are 156 in Longford, with a good few more applications on hand. This is a very successful scheme. The Cathaoirleach referred to the repair and leasing scheme, which has been used to very good effect in my own county of Waterford, and there should be more uptake in other local authorities. There is no question about that. It should not be the case that over 53% of all repair and leasing units have been delivered in Waterford. It is good for Waterford, as many one- and two-bed properties in city centre and town centre areas have been done, reducing the reliance on emergency accommodation, in particular. I want to see more local authorities delivering in that respect. I think Deputy Ó Broin would agree that I would have raised this when I was a member of this committee. We have the CPO activation programme that was funded under URDF 3. Every local authority got significant funding to go into the CPO space. We want local authorities to be proactive in this space by putting properties on the derelict sites' register and using CPOs where required.
As the Chair knows, I met representatives of his local authority recently to discuss both turning around vacant council properties and the approach that has been taken with the significant upgrades being made to properties. We absolutely need to have good-quality housing for our people. There are minimum required standards in place, but perhaps a better approach might be to ensure that those standards can be met in a shorter timeframe in order that people can get into those properties more quickly. We had a discussion in that regard.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State. This is slightly straying off the subject matter of the meeting, but on building regulations and building apartments, in Scotland they build timber-framed apartments in half the time. Under the regulations we have, we cannot do that. We were looking at alternative ways of building. From a climate action point of view, carbon is being sequestered by using timber frames. It is acknowledged that it is the way to go but we cannot build timber-framed apartment buildings.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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There seem to be differing views on timber frames and what can be used. I was in Copenhagen for a couple of days due an event relating to the Danish Presidency. The housing crisis is now right across Europe. The minister for housing in Denmark highlighted that there is a very significant difference even between Stockholm and Copenhagen when it comes to how high apartments can be.
This matter is being kept under review as part of the building regulations. Safety is always paramount for us. Every country is different, and we have to look at what will work here. The programme for Government states that at least 20% of all housing will include modern methods of construction, whether that is 2D or 3D volumetric. We are probably over the 20% mark at this stage. We want to drive on as much as possible. I certainly hear what the Chair is saying in respect of apartments, but we will always err on the side of caution. We are examining if we can go much higher with timber frames. It would be good if we could, but we will always act on the basis of the precautionary principle. We want to make sure that the higher we go with wood, it is completely safe.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Yes, but it is just that we have Irish companies building timber-framed housing in Scotland and we cannot build them in Ireland.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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By way of information, we held committee hearings, which the Minister of State would have been here for, when the previous Government was doing its review of Part B of the building regulations, which deal with fire safety. There is no opposition from our fire safety authorities to updating the regulations to allow us to do timber-framed buildings of over two storeys. The issue is it has to be set out clearly in the regulations, and the review, unfortunately, did not even address the matter. This committee has a very strong record of arguing for the highest possible fire safety standards. None of us who were at those meetings, including the Minister of State, would have argued anything different from the Minister.
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Absolutely. I appreciate that.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Our building regulations do not currently allow more than two storeys in a timber-framed building. The difficulty is if the density requirements in our development plans mean 80%-plus of housing is going to have to be mid-density or high density. Timber framing, and especially 3D timber framing and light gauge steel framing, are going to be key. People talk about agrément certificates and demonstrator projects, but unless there is an actual change the companies the Minister of State knows well because they are in his constituency, Coillte and others, are not going to be able to do it. Yesterday in Barcelona, what is Europe's tallest residential building was launched. It is only about 14 storeys. It is a beautiful social housing project that is really well-designed. It is spacious, light, has an embodied carbon level to die for and was built using a 3D timber-framed system. If there is one regulation the Minister could change over the next period it is that section of Part B. Otherwise, we are going to really struggle. Cairn is busy building Seven Mills, and the Minister was out there recently. All that is high-carbon slab concrete. I am not objecting to the homes; I am supporting the Chair.
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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I take the point. We will absolutely keep this under review and ask our officials to look at that. I agree that there is a need for more timber. Approximately 70% of the accelerated delivery programme uses timber framing. I am aware the points the Deputy is making are not about two-storey buildings, but going beyond that. We obviously have to ensure there is correct certification-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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One hundred per cent.
John Cummins (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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-----with the NSAI. As the Minister stated, if we are going into this space, we must ensure that we go in with our eyes wide open and that all the correct procedures and certifications are in place.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State. He mentioned his constituency of Waterford. Those buildings are all one- and two-bedroom. We are building a lot of three-bedroom places. Even in rural areas, we have single people going into three-bedroom houses. If we built more one- and two-bedroom apartments, it would free up more of our stock. That is the figure I was given for timber framing. It would be built in half the time and up to standard. It would just need a minimal tweak of the regulations.
I think all members have spoken. Deputy Sheehan was online but he has gone. I was going to call him. That is everything. I thank the Minister, the Minister of State and their officials for coming here to present the Further Revised Estimate.