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

I thank Deputy Byrne for bringing forward this topic for discussion and providing us with an opportunity to consider what we have achieved in recent years through Meath County Council. I will also outline our plans for the next few years, including funding allocations.

Deputy Byrne will be aware that housing is one of the Government's top priorities. Investment in Rebuilding Ireland has been significantly increased every year. Apart from having sites and planning permissions, the Government must have the ambition to solve and prioritise this issue, which is the case. This year, we have funding of €2.4 billion for housing and the figure will increase to €2.6 billion next year. Capital spending increased by 25% this year. Money is being set aside to try to make this happen. The Deputy is right that it is important to have a pipeline of projects in place in every county, especially priority counties such as Meath, to ensure this money can be spent on projects to deliver housing. Part of my job, through the housing delivery office of my Department, is to look at the pipeline of projects that are coming through across the areas of build, acquisition, lease, housing assistance payment, HAP, and so on. We this on a weekly and monthly basis with every local authority. We have a very close working relationship with Meath County Council. As a local Deputy, I naturally engage a lot with the council on its projects. Meath County Council has been doing quite well in recent years in responding to the national drive from the Government to improve the situation around housing and put plans in place for the future.

Nationally, 27,000 households will be helped with their housing needs in 2019 and more than 10,000 new social houses will be delivered. These include more than 6,000 direct build units and leased or acquired housing. These are 10,000 taxpayer funded houses that were not available last year.

Meath County Council's share of that is approximately 1,100 and rightly so.

With regard to the social housing programme in Meath, the local authority itself is responsible in the first instance for housing delivery on the ground. I cannot tell the local authority what sites to use and the Department does not micromanage every detail. We work with the authority on the proposals it brings forward and make an envelope of money available for projects. We have made that very clear. We have worked with the local authority to set targets for 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 and Meath has reached those targets at all stages and gone beyond them. We have made it very clear that the funding is available from the Department to go beyond those targets to put a greater pipeline of projects in place. In 2018, Meath County Council delivered through all of the various mechanisms more than 1,200 new solutions, of which 436 were new social houses provided through build, acquisition and lease. That was 100 more than the target. We funded that happily. It is my job as Minister of State from the local area to ensure the funding is there. Provision through HAP, RAS and so on came to 767 homes. In total, Meath delivered 1,204 houses in 2018 and will be very close to that number in 2019 given the pipeline that is there. Since Rebuilding Ireland commenced in 2016, over 3,400 units in total have been brought forward by Meath County Council across all the schemes.

The ambition is there on the part of the local authority and on the part of the Department. The targets are being reached and I understand we have to put in place the pipeline projects for 2020 and 2021. They are there for 2019 and 2020 to match the targets but I am looking beyond that to 2021 and 2022. We support the local authority to purchase land banks and develop more sites but we have moved on from the days of bringing forward large-scale sites to put hundreds of social houses in a single area while all the private houses are built somewhere else. We try to develop sites with social and affordable housing and private housing together. The projects in the pipeline that are larger include the site in Ashbourne which was previously owned by the Department of Education and Skills and there are sites in Ratoath too. Bettystown is coming forward this year and next year and housing is being brought forward this year, hopefully, in Cortown and Oldcastle. There are also sites in Nobber, Carlanstown, Donore, Dunshaughlin and Kells. Many sites are being developed which will give us the supply we need for 2019. We have been very clear with the local authority about putting in place more projects, including on its own lands. It has a large land bank in Navan at the Farganstown site and is bringing forward proposals there. The money was sanctioned last week and a project has gone to tender for a new road to open up those lands. That land bank will be brought into use. We encourage the local authority to put together more land banks and will work with it on that.

We recognise the need for the local authority to put in place a pipeline of projects. Meath County Council has, as a rule, responded to what is required of it over the last couple of years. Naturally, the ambition is to go even further. There is a great deal of private sector development in Meath also. It is probably among the top three or four counties for private housing development and that will bring forward other options under Part V, including turn-key options. We want to encourage and continue with that too because we recognise that there is a great deal of demand in Meath to which we want to respond. I am confident the local authority is in a position to do so. It needs to do so and we will certainly work with it on a weekly basis to bring more projects forward. However, the Department cannot tell the local authority which sites in which areas it should use. We can work with the local authority on any project it brings forward. I will try to work with the authority to ensure we give it quick answers and respond as quickly as we can to any proposals it brings forward. We will continue to do that.

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