Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Some 30% of all houses in the State are new houses which is an enormous achievement. The Government is delivering strongly on social and affordable housing programmes with 13,000 benefiting under the broad range of social and affordable housing programmes in operation since 2004. Record levels of funding are being allocated to local authorities for their housing programmes this year. The total Exchequer provision for both capital and current expenditure for 2005 is €1.3 billion which is 20% over the provision figure for last year. This represents a seven-fold increase in the past seven years. I know the Deputy will be very supportive, as I am, of such investment.

The Deputy is correct in that changes were made in Part V. The supply of social and affordable housing has been boosted by the implementation of Part V. It took some time to implement the provisions of Part V and there were changes and delays following much lobbying in the House. Whether or not those were justified, I accept delays occurred but it is up and running. It is envisaged that more than 11,000 units will be delivered from the various affordable schemes between this year and in 2007. The needs of a further 6,000 households are expected to be met through other social housing measures, including houses completed by the voluntary co-operative sector. The long-term housing needs of approximately 5,000 current recipients of rent supplements will be addressed through new rental accommodation schemes.

The local authorities are also producing five-year action plans for social and affordable housing programmes. The primary aim of these plans is to ensure housing is delivered in a manner which breaks the cycle of disadvantage and dependency which still exists in some areas and I accept the point made by the Deputy on that matter.

The Deputy asked about the transparency of the land swaps. The Harcourt Terrace site was the subject of an initial feasibility analysis which concluded that given its present zoning it would only realise about 30 apartments on site in addition to some commercial developments. The analysis found that its maximum value would be extracted by facilitating a commercial development focused on the owner-occupied market, for example, a law practice for which demand is strong in that area. The recommendation was to consider an exchange of the site as a pilot scheme to test the Government's fast growing approach to early delivery of affordable units. The net consideration for the site was determined in the analysis at €15.6 million which is €2.6 million over its pre-sale valuation of €13 million. This equates to approximately €39 million per acre for that area and reflects the top of the range for sale prices achieved in the city centre. Dublin City Council acted as project managers for the site. Sixteen bids were received on an open tender and Durkan Homes was identified as the prime developer from a short list of three bids.

The advantage is that rather than having a site which would have required the State to take considerable years to develop — it takes four years to complete a building project on a site — the State was enabled in a matter of months to go to the market and have 193 apartments. One hundred and forty families will be in their apartments by Christmas as a result of this decision and 53 more early in the new year, rather than having to wait for the longer process. The Government has now made six other sites available. Any reasonable person would agree this process is a fast-track approach. I accepted the point made in the House on many occasions. It is a fair point and it was raised by Deputy Rabbitte many times. I am here again answering questions from Members because we have effectively done things, as is always the case. The Deputy asked if a proper feasibility study was carried out and my reply has shown it was.

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