Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies from all sides of the House for their contributions to this debate over the past two nights. Something we can all agree on is that the country requires more homes for its people. Fortunately, the Government has responded by putting in place two strategies, first, the Construction 2020 strategy and, second, the Social Housing Strategy 2020 to deal comprehensively with the legacy issues that were left to us in terms of a completely dysfunctional property and construction sector. In terms of the context, the Government came into office and found a property sector that was essentially decimated. Builders and developers were gone off-site, many of our skilled tradespeople had left the country, and funding that had been available to build houses was not available. That is the context in which this Government took office. Essentially, it was left to clean up the mess of the previous Administration.

It is all too easy to criticise the Government and to say that we need to build more housing. As I said, there is no arguing in that; we are all agreed on it. The long-term solution to homelessness and to providing housing for all of the people on the housing list is to supply more homes, but identifying the problem alone without proposing concrete, sustainable solutions is not helpful.

On the other hand, this Government, through its strategies, is coming up with projects in various forms. We are prioritising how we can deliver projects by concentrating on early delivery. That is why there was a lot of investment in the voids and vacant housing programmes across the country, the direct acquisition of properties from the private sector by local authorities and approved housing bodies and approval last year for over 300 multi-unit housing projects by local authorities and the approved housing bodies. I am a bit disappointed but not surprised to note that there has been no acknowledgement from the Opposition of the achievements made under the multifaceted approach the Government is already undertaking.

The Social Housing Strategy provides for 35,000 new social housing units at a cost of €3.8 billion and, in addition, the delivery of up to 75,000 units of long-term, quality accommodation to meet housing needs through the housing assistance payment, HAP, and the rental accommodation scheme, RAS.

It is there for all to see in the Social Housing Output in 2015 report published yesterday that this Government is delivering on its targets with local authorities and approved housing bodies. We have met the social housing need of 13,000 households in 2015, an 86% increase in unit delivery on the previous year. We have also refurbished over 2,700 vacant social housing units, bringing them back into productive use by having people live in them. The vacancy rates have fallen significantly and are now down as low as 1% in Dublin city. I acknowledge that Deputies have identified further vacant units around the country and I urge those Deputies, and the local authorities responsible for the units, to make application to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government to have those units turned around also. Almost 9,000 homes were delivered through the social housing current expenditure programme, the RAS scheme and the HAP scheme. That is now operational in 18 local authorities and we intend to roll it out to additional local authorities in 2016.

There has been criticism of the number of units constructed to date by local authorities. Again, it is easy to criticise and convenient to disregard the fact that bringing a construction project to completion is not done overnight. It takes time for it to be tendered for, procured, to get builders on site and have the units constructed but we are now seeing considerable progress across all local authority areas in that regard.

The announcement I made yesterday with the Minister, Deputy Kelly, of 1,000 additional units across the various local authorities means that 200 projects have now been approved and will deliver over 5,300 homes across this country. This figure is made up of 3,250 local authority direct builds and 1,500 public private partnerships. A further 600 are to be built by the approved housing bodies under the social housing current expenditure programme. We have made sure that local authorities have the capacity to deliver this accelerated construction programme by giving sanction for 420 local authority housing posts. That should be acknowledged also.

I am satisfied that the approach taken by this Government is comprehensive and I am committed, along with my colleagues, to doing all that is possible to overcome the difficulties faced by households in accessing good quality housing. Our vision is that every household in the State will have access to secure, good quality housing suited to their needs at an affordable price in a sustainable community. This Government is ensuring all stakeholders are working together to make this happen: my Department, local authorities, approved housing bodies, developers and NAMA. We acknowledge that we have some way to go, but I believe we have made a good start in 2015 by meeting the needs of some 13,000 households. I commend amendment No. 2 to the House.

This is not just about the money and resources. The Government has put the money in place. It is now about delivery and encouraging the local authorities, through the Part 8 mechanism, the tendering and procurement process and the approved housing bodies, to get building under way on the sites that have been approved across the country.

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