Frank O'Rourke (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is an issue throughout the country. The housing crisis is particularly bad in a number of counties at present. This is why we need to see how this can be dealt with to facilitate and promote the building of housing to assist with the crisis.

With regard to the delivery of infrastructure, those developing a number of sites in my constituency, in Galway and in other places, which have planning permission, are being told they cannot start construction until 2020. These people are willing and able to start to build, which would help to deal with the crisis. This is absolutely outrageous and unacceptable. While various utilities identify issues, solutions can be delivered in a number of ways. The Government could borrow money through NAMA or the local authorities at very low interest rates to help deliver the required infrastructure. It could be done through public-private partnership. It could also be done by conditioning the developer to deliver the improved infrastructure or through levies.

Most sites where construction is starting will take two to three years to finish. Rather than stopping the development and stopping houses being constructed to deal with the existing issue, the upgrade of the infrastructure should be delivered as the construction of the housing estate is being delivered. This does not happen. There is no thinking outside of the box in this regard. A number of people have raised this issue with me in recent months. It is a real problem. People are willing to start to construct properties. They are told they can build them but that they cannot connect to the services for three years. People cannot make such an investment because they need to sell the house to be able to build next one. The issue is particularly with regard to wastewater services. In some cases, the upgrade can involve an increase in pumps, an interconnector or a slight increase in the infrastructure feeding into a mains service. These all have easy enough solutions when we speak about them here but if we empower, instruct or assist local authorities to be the vehicle to make this happen, then more development can happen quicker to deal with the issue. At present, development is being held back and withdrawn. This is a huge problem as we speak.

Another issue with regard to infrastructure is roads. In areas such as Clane and Maynooth in Kildare North, there are sites which cannot be considered for building because they lack ring-road infrastructure. In my area of Celbridge, part of the town is gridlocked because of a lack of adequate bridge infrastructure. These are real issues and problems which cause delays in the delivery of housing that is already approved.

Another issue is permeability between estates. We have guidelines from the Department and it is a priority for the National Transport Authority, and we can see why this is the case. It needs to be examined because it causes antisocial behaviour and many difficulties and problems. When local authorities take charge of estates where permeability was included in the approval of planning permission, they must extinguish it. It is a difficulty. These are the areas I wished to raise with the Minister.

See this speech in context