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

We are available to meet Wexford County Council on any occasion and in fairness it is quite active in meeting with us. The specific questions the Deputy has asked have not come to our attention. I can confirm that the budget for acquiring houses is not gone. I am surprised that this is the impression that has been given. We are encouraging local authorities to build more houses and to get involved in all the schemes but naturally, when there is good value to be achieved in acquisition, we are willing to do that. I am not sure what information the Deputy has but if Wexford County Council has any particular schemes it wants to get involved in or houses it wants us to buy and if it recommends good value, we will work with it on that but we are very strong in our encouragement that it build new houses, as well as carry out leasing and so on.

Acquisition makes sense sometimes and we certainly fund it when it is requested, explained and backed up with information. I am not sure where that is coming from.

In respect of the two-year wait for someone with a disability, that should not be the case. I have been in a lot of houses that Wexford County Council has specifically designed and built for people with special needs - some families needed a lot of additional help - and there was some great success there. I am surprised that the Deputy has examples of houses that are needing two years because there are plenty of mechanisms to fund housing like that. Wexford has been involved in a couple of cases. The issue with the one site the Deputy mentioned in Enniscorthy was not raised with me directly through the delivery office. The Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, and I have met Irish Water on numerous occasions and we went through different changes in work practices as well. There should not be delays on sites. If there are, we certainly will dig into that.

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