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

That is exactly what we are trying to put into the system. I agree that there is no excuse for sites taking up to eight years to be completed. We are reviewing all the projects and we are looking at the processes to see if we can put in place realistic timelines that all local authorities can sign up to. Their housing teams and chief executives have bought into this, as has our Department. Our job is to deliver it and a new team in the Department will track it on a weekly basis, viewing sites with me and the Minister to ensure it is happening on the ground and to deal with any barriers we come across. In the past there were no timelines or agreed process, which is a crazy way to deliver projects, but we now have these things and with proper project management I am confident we can deliver them on time. It is not good enough for a project to take six years. It happened in the past but it will not happen in the future and we will stand over that. We had to narrow the process down first and we have achieved that.

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