Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The consequences of the coronavirus have been mixed. It is predicted there will be an 8% drop in global CO2 pollution in 2020, which is welcome, but locking people in their homes and closing down the economy is not an effective strategy to maintain this. I am concerned that the European Court of Auditors flagged that our better energy warmer homes scheme is not delivering significant energy savings for the money we are investing in it. When can we expect a report on the review of the projects for households renovated under this retrofit scheme between 2014 and 2018? Does the court's decision mean the scheme is in trouble? It has been valuable to many people, in particular those on lower incomes.

I was deeply concerned by a statement from the Construction Industry Federation that there may be an increase of between 10% and 15% in the cost of home build projects. We cannot allow affordability to be shelved or projects to be abandoned. While we intend to keep workers safe, are approved housing bodies, AHBs, and local authorities going to lose out because they will be priced out of projects? Are first-time buyers going to suffer? I would like an insight into how much more social housing will cost, both in time and money. Can we also commit to prioritising accessibility for those living with disabilities in our standards for private planning permission on developments and in local authority builds, as well as on local authority housing lists where people with disabilities, including mental health issues, must be given priority?

If we can expect to live with Covid-19 for a long time and face the possibility of further pandemics, should we review standards in homebuilding programmes in areas such as the layout of gardens and outdoor spaces? Can we look at the Danish concept of co-housing, which I have spoken about previously? It is defined as a type of collaborative housing in which residents actively participate in the design and operation of their neighbourhoods.

That is very important.

The Minister of State spoke about local development plans. Local authorities are going to experience the largest cuts in revenue they have ever faced. There have been no rates or car parking charges and people cannot pay rents on housing. What are we going to do to ensure that we give local authorities proper capital funding? They cannot have cuts in their services, whether for the elderly or others, nor can they have cuts to staff. We cannot allow that to happen. Can the Minister commit that, in development plans in the future, there will be no cuts to any services?

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