Anthony Lawlor (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Again, I welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue and I thank the Opposition for bringing forward this motion. As Deputy Helen McEntee already said, there is no silver bullet for this. If money were the solution to our problems, the Minister has certainly put a lot of money into this programme over the past several years when it has become available. People seem to forget that three years ago, the State was in financial trouble and did not have the money to construct houses. Another reason for the shortage of social housing is that the previous Administration opted out of social house building, leaving it up to private developers to provide local authorities through the 20% social and affordable housing requirement for new developments. That dried up when house building collapsed completely.

Over the next three years, the Government will invest €3.8 billion which will create a sizeable scope for building houses. The problem is that local authorities in many cases are not ready for this. Over the past five years, local authorities did not plan for when money would be available for them to build social houses. They left the lands they owned fallow too. They never put in place plans, Part 8, so that when moneys became available, there would be shovel-ready lands on which houses could be built. Kildare local authority has only one shovel-ready site for 24 houses. Local authorities must step up to the mark and get the lands they own suitable for housing so they can download the money available from the Minister. I welcome the roll-out of the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme. From a Kildare perspective, however, the limit of €1,000 needs to be upped because rent for a three-bedroom semi-detached house in Kildare starts at €1,500. Increasing the threshold would allow people some stability in the rental market.

If everybody is in a rush to build houses-----

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