Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

I wish to support strongly the Government's amendment to this motion and will do so principally from the perspective of capital investment in local infrastructure and services. There have been significant and tangible outputs from the high levels of capital investment channelled through my Department. Good value has been obtained through new and innovative methods deployed to promote more efficient and effective management of our programmes. These include the promotion of design, build and operate — the preferred procurement method for water and wastewater treatment projects; PPPs and other joint ventures in the housing area; and producer responsibility initiatives involving business and industry in delivering higher levels of recycling.

A modernisation programme has also been underway in the local government sector for a number of years to enhance the effectiveness in the delivery of key infrastructure. Delivery of a quality customer service by local authorities has been a central objective of this process. To this end, a set of 42 service indicators, which span all the main service areas, was published in January 2004. This service indicators initiative will identify good practice, as well as areas which require improvement. I expect to see the first set of results in the summer.

This Government has made a considerable investment in social and affordable housing over the years. Since 1997, the social and affordable housing needs of 86,000 households have been met through the provision of local authority housing, vacancies arising in existing houses, and output under the other social and affordable housing measures. This year the Government will spend over €2 billion on housing measures which is double the expenditure in 2000.

To ensure we use these resources to best effect, local authorities, at my Department's request, have developed five-year action plans for their social and affordable housing programmes. The multi-annual capital framework developed by this Government allowed us to develop this more sophisticated tool for the planning and implementation of the social and affordable housing programme. This is a worthwhile step forward because there have been problems in the past when resources were turned on and off. This approach allows for better planning and management of projects and will certainly ensure that the considerable investment being made will deliver the optimum level of quality housing in a manner conducive to breaking cycles of disadvantage and dependency.

A clear indication that value for money is being achieved can be seen when we compare the cost of private housing. In 2004, the average unit cost of local authority and voluntary housing at national level was €146,000 and €155,000 respectively. This compared to €249,000 for a private house. The difference is much greater in the Dublin area.

As a result of the aforementioned investment, it is anticipated that the needs of in excess of 13,000 households will be met in 2005. In addition, a more coherent approach to housing support will see long-term recipients of supplementary welfare rent allowances moving into the new local authority rental accommodation scheme from this year. These households will continue to be accommodated mainly within the private rented sector.

This year should also see the commencement of some 5,500 housing starts by local authorities. Over 1,800 units of accommodation are forecast for completion by the voluntary and co-operative housing sector. The investment in remedial and regeneration works for run-down estates is also having real effect in improving the living conditions of many local authority tenants. The benefits of this programme are particularly visible in Ballymun where many families have already settled into their new houses.

I was pleased to introduce a much needed central heating programme last year for local authority housing. This programme assisted some 2,900 households in its first year and is bringing real quality-of-life improvements for families and elderly people in particular.

Inroads into Traveller accommodation are also being made. During the period of the first Traveller accommodation programme from 2000 to 2004, a total of €130 million was expended on the provision of new and refurbished Traveller accommodation. In the same period, the number of families on unauthorised sites was halved from 1,207 families at the start of the programme to 610.

Significant progress has also been made in addressing the need for emergency accommodation for the homeless. Our focus is now on developing longer term options. We expect to deliver about 12,000 affordable housing units between 2005 and 2007.

Electronic voting has been referred to in the course of the debate. I am convinced of the benefits it will achieve in modernising our electoral processes, including more democratic outcomes through the minimisation of invalid votes, more accurate counting of votes, the provision of a higher level of service to the public, and greater flexibility and speed in the voting and counting processes. I acknowledge there have been difficulties with e-voting but when the system was first introduced it had many hosannas from all sides of the House. We must ensure that when we come through the testing process we can re-establish some confidence in it.

In tandem with the ongoing work of the independent commission on electronic voting, my Department is developing a programme of further assessment, testing and validation of the chosen system, which is intended to address the issues raised by the commission.

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