John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to discuss the proposals outlined in this document. I was with the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, last week in Kilkenny, where we visited several completed housing schemes. The houses were top quality. Tenants had moved into some of them and they were more than happy with the finished product.

The Minister is enthusiastic and passionate about delivery of this housing programme, but he will not do it on his own. This requires the same passion from the officials and members at county council level. A number of obstacles preventing delivery rest with the efficiency of local councils and the attitude generally of chief executives and the County and City Management Association. It is often said we do not have the expertise at local level anymore. I disagree with that. We have the builders and expertise at local level. Expertise can be bought into the councils if they so wish to deliver the houses that are needed in each county council area. That is the reality. You would not say that if you were in business. You would confront the obstacles, get over them and sort them out. How committed are the chief executives and the officials in every county to delivering on the housing schemes that are now being put forward? What has happened since the 1950s? There was no money and there was very little to do on planning, yet local councillors went out and delivered very significant housing schemes in every single county bar none. I was reared in one of them, and they were excellent homes and houses.

Why can we not go back to allowing the councils to review their lists and to deliver on those for the profile of applicant they have? Why can we not remove some of the bureaucracy within local councils, and indeed the Department, to ensure the councils can do small things, such as refurbishing houses by getting the money for them and getting them back on the market? That is an issue at local authority level. Why can they not access the funds easily to extend a house to provide a growing family with what it needs, be it either a four or five-bedroom house? It does not seem to happen easily any more. There appears to be a big song and dance about any issue that relates to local government and the Department.

I am aware that local councillors are anxious to see these schemes completed and to see the small things being done, but for some reason bureaucracy tends either to stall them or prevent them from proceeding. I have spoken to builders. You can call them developers and give them a bad name but we need the builders to go out and build. I know they are there to go out and build but we are not giving them enough leeway at local level to make it happen.

The big issue that will confront us now in completing schemes will be the cost. There is a 15%-odd increase in building costs. You can argue that it rests between 7% and 15% but one way or another it is an extra cost. If we are going to stall the decision-making on that, then we are going to prevent homes from being completed and being made available for people to be housed. Every local authority should be forced to come forward with a plan to deal with the extra costs and the issues that are arising now on completed housing schemes to ensure these houses are allocated as quickly as possible.

I will finish by saying in respect of Irish Water, as my colleague Deputy Phelan did, that if we do not get investment in rural Ireland in existing water schemes in the areas that are at capacity, then we will not have housing and it will not be possible to implement these proposals for the various schemes. That requires us to take the big step forward of accommodating Irish Water on the specific schemes around Ireland and, in particular, rural Ireland, to ensure the infrastructure is there to take care of the housing needs of local communities.

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