Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Let me explain. The Deputy will not be able to answer my question either. Some 47,000 social housing units are to be delivered by 2021, supported by an investment of €5.35 billion. That is real money that is on the table. However, Deputy Boyd Barrett will not be able to answer the question as to the impact of a housing delivery unit being set up in the Department with responsibility for housing. This unit will work with every local authority to improve the opportunity to build council houses. There will be a provision of money for the building of bridges, roads or access points, as the case may be, to get access to sites that are currently inaccessible. Councils will have the opportunity to design their own houses. The planning process will be expedited so that these things can happen.

The overall objective is to deliver 47,000 houses by 2021. It is impossible for any chief executive to say today that X number of council houses will be built by year end. When we take into account these facilities, the housing delivery unit in the Department and the opportunity for local authorities throughout the country to avail of the incentives to open up sites they have not been able to open up before, to expedite planning and to design their own houses, the answer to this question will become clearer as we move along.

The overall objective is for 47,000 houses with €5.35 billion on the table to make it happen. Local authorities have been the subject of a lot of pressure and there was a question on this from Deputy Micheál Martin earlier. Some local authorities perform better than others but voids and the regeneration of neglected houses into liveable units are opportunities for social houses to be provided by local authorities.

It is not possible to answer the Deputy's question directly because the answer lies in the incentives and facilities being made available to local authorities and the chief executives of those local authorities to get on with it and prove they can measure up both to the numbers and the timetable that has been set out.

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