Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are 607 projects, which will comprise 10,074 housing units, at various stages in the pipeline. Some of them are in the assessment process, some are in the Part VIII process and others are on-site. I agree there is a need for urgency. When I became Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government I asked the same question that Deputy O'Sullivan just asked. When I, or the Minister of State, Deputy English, visited local authorities, we were told that they could not get decisions from the Department. I probed that issue in the Department. It was not as straightforward as many people like to think. It is a convenient excuse to blame the Department for everything. There is a system in the Department that is about driving projects as quickly as is reasonable, while still carrying out a very robust assessment to ensure we get value for money. Staff visit local authorities where they meet engineers, quantity surveyors and architects to get projects approved quickly. That is happening. If there are cases where it is not happening I would like to know about them and I will ensure they are addressed.

In regard to the sites, two of the Dublin local authorities have already brought forward four key large-scale sites that are capable of delivering 3,000 new homes. I expect other local authorities will follow suit fairly quickly. The Dublin local authorities have already advertised with regard to those four sites. In the coming months, I will be asking each local authority to produce plans for all the sites that are ready to go now. It will not be possible to have movement on the 700 sites within the same year. The target is to have delivery across all of these sites over a five-year timeframe. There will be a significant ramping up of the volume of units that is being delivered. As I said, on many of these sites the housing will be either all social housing or a significant portion of social housing. Some of them are small infill sites and others are large sites which need proper tenure mix such that essentially what would be created is a new town centre and community of the type that exists in Poolbeg, Cherrywood or Adamstown.

On Part V, I do not propose to repeat the mistake made in the past whereby a developer could buy out an obligation under Part V. If I understood Deputy Cowen correctly, he agrees with me in this regard. That was a big mistake at the time. Although money was handed over it often was not spent on social housing. Let us not forget that we are not building enough houses in Ireland. Many developers are not making enough money to be able to justify building a lot more houses. If I were to ask them to contribute more than 10% that would, in my view, slow down the momentum that is already starting to take hold in some parts of the country. What is encouraging is that many developers are asking to provide more than 10% because based on the plans, they can get paid upfront by the local authorities, which can help them to finance the remainder of a project. The level of social housing being provided by projects such as Poolbeg and O'Devaney Gardens, which is on State-owned land, is way beyond 10%. Some projects are providing up to 25% social housing. In the case of O'Devaney Gardens, 50% of the units are non-private housing. Different sites require different solutions and local authorities should be able to deal with them on a case-by-case basis.

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