Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

No Member thinks the figures for recent years are anything to cheer about. The trend has improved and the figures are going in the right direction. Only 75 houses were delivered two years ago by local authorities throughout the country. That is not something anyone would cheer about. That figure was increased to more than 600 last year and this year more than 2,000 new houses will be built on site, as well as voids being brought back and the acquisition of new houses. Next year that figure will be 3,800 and it will increase thereafter. In terms of the pipeline of projects, we are not saying all 11,000 projects on 700 sites will be there in three or four months' time. Lots of projects that were not there a year ago are now moving in the right direction. We want to increase the number of projects in the pipeline because it will currently only deliver 11,000 houses but there is a commitment under Rebuilding Ireland to build more than 36,000 houses and we want that to happen. However, the pipeline has to be put in place because projects will not fall out of the sky.

Deputy Cowen is correct that the procedures in place to deliver houses were far too slow. That is why we made changes to the delivery model and changed from an eight-stage to a four-stage model. There is a one-stage option but local authorities do not want to use it. We have focussed on this issue in recent months and changes will be made in the coming months. There have been meetings to get agreement from all involved and the changes will improve timelines dramatically. A new delivery team to drive more urgency has been put in place, as announced after the housing summit by the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy. All Members agree these sites should be developed more quickly. The sites are being visited to determine what can be done to fast-track them, what the barriers are and what is wrong. Procedural delays are part of the problem and we will correct that as quickly as we can. Those changes will be made in the coming weeks.

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