Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the progress to date. However, there is another issue, as I see it. There is a multiplicity of housing bodies - voluntary bodies, approved housing bodies, charitable bodies - all vying with one another to supply the housing market. To my mind, they are competing and obstructing one another because they are in the same place at the same time, increasing the cost of housing because they are competing in the same market, hence the necessity to produce a plan that is short-term, that is rapid in its delivery and that the local authorities recognise. The local authorities could then identify a specific number by which they propose to address the housing need in their respective local authority areas, as opposed to the general, broad-brushstroke approach that has been applied. It should be recognised that this is to address a housing deficit that goes back about 15 years. I believe there is a terrible reluctance to resolve the deficit and go back to direct build and provision of local authority houses on the one hand for people on local authority lists and, on the other, people in lower income groups who ordinarily were able to acquire private sites, developed sites, subsidised sites and local authority loans, all of which have disappeared in recent times. This is what I feel we need to emphasise and target.

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