Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for those questions. I will work back through them. Regarding rates and the waiver of same, further funding will be required because some businesses will not be able to reopen after the three-month period because of the plans we have put in place, so they will continue to be able to avail of the waiver. In advance of that, an additional amount of money will have to be secured for local authorities.

I accept that revenue streams from other sources are down, but by committing to 100% of their rates payments local authorities are getting more than they would have had they gone to collect the rates themselves, because they never collect 100% of their rates. Some local authorities, unfortunately, are very bad at collecting rates. We are overcompensating them and that should help fill any gap that might arise. If a local authority is telling Members who are in the Chamber that they do not have the funding for a service, could they please let me know directly because I want to know what it is and how much it is because that should not arise? We have done very detailed work in the Department, which has very detailed information as to how much revenue comes in in rates, car parking charges and everything else and how it has been affected in this crisis. I ask Deputies for their assistance in that regard if they encounter that kind of excuse from a local authority.

Regarding the private facilities, if Deputy Ó Broin has the name of those facilities I would like to look into the matter myself. At the moment we are trying to compile proper intelligence on how many units of accommodation we need and how many homes we need for temporary accommodation rather than for permanent homes, in terms of the new standards or the new norm that has been established in the current pandemic crisis.

If money is needed to address day service pressures, that is not an obstacle. I made such a commitment to NGOs when I spoke to them during one of our engagements three or four weeks ago. We talk about the amount of money that is being spent but the outcome we get in terms of keeping people safe and healthy in this crisis is worth the money, which really pales in comparison with some of the bigger ticket items that we have to pay for, and we can make that money available from within my Department.

We are looking at the private sector sites as turnkeys. In one way it is to make sure that we meet our social housing targets if there is going to be a difficulty there, but also in another way it is to help people get back on site and building and to give some sort of security for the builders. That is being looked at.

Regarding acquisitions and doing more, very shortly we will publish the 2019 social housing delivery figures. We will give all of the breakdowns. We have not yet done the targets for 2020. The local authorities know their targets for 2020 and 2021, but because of what has been happening with Covid-19 we have not been able to give a detailed breakdown to each local authority. We will do that, and as we do it we will figure out what we might need in terms of more acquisitions depending on what is happening on social housing sites. I reiterate that almost 1,000 social housing homes are currently being finished across almost 40 sites around the country.

We have published every previous piece of research the Department has carried out with the ESRI, so I do not foresee that we would not publish this one. I think Deputy Ó Broin said I might not be in office, so it may not be my call, but I will try to convince whoever is Minister, if I am not, to publish the report because we have published the previous reports.

On extending the ban beyond 27 June, that is still six or seven weeks away. We want to make sure that we make the right call and we will do it based on what is happening with the emergency and whether we are moving forward through the phases as we hope we will – it is to be hoped there will be no regression -and what else might be happening in the wider sector. We will need some evidence before we make that decision. I did make comments recently to the effect that I foresaw it being extended, but I need to get more information before I can make such a recommendation to the Cabinet.

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