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

I have no problem complimenting Deputy O'Sullivan on that. A total of €150 million has been spent. Voids are an essential part and must be brought back into use. The then Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, started it and we continued with it. Deputy Alan Kelly was in the Department as well. We always said there is no excuse for voids and they should not be there. Far too many are left in Dublin. There should be none and they will be dealt with. There should not be many left at the end of this year – I can assure Deputies of that. Some properties were set aside for regeneration but nothing has happened. Again, that has gone on for far too long. There is a long history of this, and it has not only happened under our watch. It is not acceptable and it should not be happening. We need to see things move on in some of those sites as well.

Let us be clear on what turnkey is. Turnkey is build-to-order. Local authorities require the developer on an unfinished estate or a new site to provide good value and to deliver houses to the local authority. To me, that is a normal way of doing business. It is perfectly acceptable and I think it is a great way of doing business. I believe we should do more of it because there is great value in some cases. It will not work in every area but it is something we should do.

Other comments were made by Deputy MacSharry about streamlining the process. Again, we have had this debate during the past year or two and Deputy MacSharry has made the accusation that the system is out of order and so on. We have made many changes to the system and to the protocol. It is now down to a 59 stage protocol. It took approximately seven or eight months of work last year with all the local authorities and housing bodies. It involved everyone coming together to change the system.

It is a good system. A lot of people in the local authorities sector have told me there was no guideline before. There was never a set number of weeks for each part of the process. They say it is nice to have that to work to. We ask all local authorities and approved housing bodies to stick to the 59 weeks and not to take on projects which take three, four and five years. Those days should be gone. That happened in the past but the 59 week target is in place now. If Deputy MacSharry wants to consult with a local authority, it will find it hard to admit that it can beat 59 weeks if the Department is taken out of the equation. Most will say that even if there were not the different stages of checking in with the Department, they could not beat the 59 weeks. If they can, I will compliment them. We have ironed out a lot of the problems there. In an ideal world, people will just say a local authority should go forward and not consult with anybody to build their houses. It would change nothing about the timelines. They would not deliver the houses any more quickly. I am told that by the local authorities themselves. Deputy MacSharry might want to check with whoever he is getting is feedback from, because it does not add up. It is not true. We have corrected the system.

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