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

I was about to answer Deputy Ó Broin's specific question when I ran out of time. It was not the Ceann Comhairle's fault; it was probably my fault for speaking slowly for once. The Deputy has suggested that 1,800 homes have been offered to the State in various ways. I am not sure the figure is as high as that, but it is certainly more than 1,000. Like the Deputy, I am not happy with the progress that is being made in this regard. I sat down with the Housing Agency a few weeks ago to try to track the process and see what is causing the delays in completing these transactions. Money has been provided to bring these properties on board, recycle them back out to the local authorities and reinvest the money that accrues from that process in further property transactions. Additional resources will be provided for this activity if it is needed.

The system is not delivering these properties as quickly as it should. Even when the houses have been transferred over, there have been delays in getting tenants to occupy them. This is not acceptable. I have sat down with those involved to talk through the issues. I will be happy to appear before the committee again to go through the issues. There are many quick wins to be gained here. We want vacant properties, including those in the possession of the banks. I think the Deputy understands that not all such properties are suitable. When we go to find them, we learn that some of them are not vacant. They can be unsuitable for other reasons. There are other issues that we can fix through the Housing Agency. It is not good enough that delays are persisting. We will fix the processes. We will deal with them. I think there are approximately 900 properties in view. More than 600 of them have been taken over. I want to be able to purchase the rest. We will look for more because we have the resources to do so. I think we can do that.

Deputy Boyd Barrett has raised other vacant properties. In many cases, they are people's private properties. We do not own them all. We are trying to put a lot of schemes in place to make it attractive to hand them over to us. We will announce additional schemes to make it even more attractive. The Peter McVerry Trust has been engaged by some local authorities to find these properties. Other non-governmental organisations and approved housing bodies have also been asked to do this work. We are all trying to get these vacant properties. I emphasise that the Peter McVerry Trust is part of the solution. It is doing some great work.

On Housing First, I am very disappointed to hear about the case mentioned by Deputy Boyd Barrett. I would love to get the details of it. The whole idea of having the Housing First approach is that the supports are absolutely meant to be there. I would like to track that and see it because it is not good enough. I am very disappointed to hear about it. Perhaps the Deputy and I will have an opportunity to chat about it.

We are trying to drive on the Housing First approach because we all agree it is a major part of the solution. It has been mentioned that just 180 tenancies have been achieved this year. It is not enough. It is below our target. We are appointing a national director of the Housing First scheme to drive it on and make it work. It is the best solution for most people. We need a supply of housing, as Deputy Cowen has said. When we can get the supply of houses, the Housing First approach is ideal for people. We need to make sure the supports are there. I will discuss that with the Deputy on a future occasion. Deputy Ryan raised the same issue. We are dealing with it. I cannot recall the specific question he asked in this regard.

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