Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To respond to Deputy Coonan, the Bill provides that any developments of up to nine houses are exempt from Part V. If small sheltered housing developments were developed by private developers with up to nine housing units, they would be exempt. If approved housing bodies, which are usually involved in this throughout the country, are building these units they too are exempt if they are building sheltered housing for the elderly. It is only where private developers might be considering developing them, and there would be a profit element involved, that the Government considers it is reasonable that they should contribute 10% of that towards additional social housing as part of the development. That is the position.

Regarding the overall objective of securing more housing units, no avenue or mechanism should be ruled out. That includes leasing and renting. We are quite dependent at present, unfortunately, because we have not been building the required number of houses for local authorities over the last number of years. That is obvious. We must address the shortfall in the meantime. What we are trying to do in this legislation is provide flexibility for local authorities to deliver social housing and to be able to respond to local situations. However, to reassure Deputies and to achieve the balance they are seeking, I will issue a ministerial policy directive to local authorities instructing that where capital funding is available they should enter Part V agreements for the acquisition of social housing units rather than entering into leasing agreements. Furthermore, where leases are being agreed, there should be a specified minimum period. Obviously, the minimum period should be a long period. Currently, the arrangement is a minimum period of ten years and up to 20 years. We cannot rule out any options that are available to increase housing supply for the people who most need it.

Finally, I wish to clarify the situation for Deputy Wallace. He is particularly exercised about Part V and how it is managed. I will be happy to clarify it further later outside the House if he wishes, because I only have a short amount of time to speak now. Essentially, we are front-loading the Part V element. In the past there were problems with disagreements between the developer and the local authority. Difficulties arose and there were many court cases. Due to the various differences, we did not deliver the number of units we wished. We now intend to front-load that into the process. A proposal for Part V should be part of the planning application process. When it is being considered by the planning authority an agreement will be reached and by the time the decision is being determined there will be a condition of planning on the Part V. The legal agreements will follow afterwards. It is an attempt to front-load it and get the agreement the Deputy speaks about at a much earlier stage in the process, to ensure we do not have the differences and problems that we experienced in the past. We can issue further regulations in this respect to tighten it up and pin it down, so people do not get away from the obligations under Part V.

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