Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for the opportunity to discuss this important issue and for his opening remarks. Sinn Féin will welcome any plan, strategy or fund that aims to address the crises in many of our urban centres in our towns and cities. We all have direct experience in our constituencies of urban centres that are blighted by dereliction, vacancy, traffic congestion and poor public realm facilities. One of the consequences of that, of course, has been the loss of population in those urban centres. Many towns and cities have experienced that. The consequence, of course, has been far too much suburban sprawl and unregulated ribbon development in the countryside. The reason I say that is those types of poor developments as a result of poor planning and settlement patterns have a real cost. They have a cost to individuals in increased commuting times, which have a cost in their personal and family lives. They also have a huge cost to our climate. Anything the Government does to try to reverse those trends of the past number decades will have the support of my party.

It is important to reflect for a moment on why we are here because if any plan is going to tackle the problems, it is important that we clearly understand those problems. We have had, and in some cases continue to have, far too much bad planning and poor implementation of the good planning frameworks in our statutes. We have had, and continue to have, weak local government. I know the Minister is battling hard with his colleagues in government to try to advance the legislation for the directly elected mayor of Limerick.

The fact he has had to have that battle shows there is still resistance and we need to be honest about that, within both Departments and State agencies, if we are to devolve and decentralise powers in a way we know makes eminent sense, including for the purposes of achieving the objectives of this strategy.

We have had far too little capital spending, particularly through our local authorities, in tackling dereliction and town centre decline. Until now, we certainly have had limited, if any, lead from central government and weak co-ordination of stakeholders. We need to learn the lesson of the failure of one of the previous Government's key plans in this area, namely, the significant section of its housing plan, Rebuilding Ireland, dedicated to tackling housing vacancy. I mention that because the Minister of State raised the importance of dealing with this issue, on which I agree completely. Rebuilding Ireland had a very modest target of bringing more than 6,000 vacant homes back into use through a number of schemes that were well designed but poorly resourced. In fact, only 1,600 of those properties were brought in over the lifetime of the schemes, which shows us the challenges ahead.

There are many positives in terms of the theory in the policy launched by the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, a number of weeks ago. We support those aspects and will work with the Government on them. However, I want to express our concerns about the policy in a collaborative spirit in the hope the Minister of State will take some of them on board as the plan is rolled out. First, I am not so sure of the merit of non-statutory plans. From our experience as local councillors, we know that when a plan is not statutory, the likelihood of its being fully implemented is reduced. Clearly, with any new approach, there is often a desire to start at a non-statutory level. However, if these non-statutory plans are found not to be implemented, we may need to think about revising that policy.

Notwithstanding that the funding measures the Minister and Minister of State announced recently are welcome, they are also far too modest, particularly given the scale of the challenge. It is a classic case of having a very good theory and plan but if the resourcing for the full implementation of that plan is not in place from the start, it can lead to inevitable problems as we go down the road. We urge the Government to address those problems if and when they happen.

I want to talk about the work of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, of which I am a member. At the request of the Chairman, we have undertaken a number of very productive public sessions on precisely the issues we are discussing, with the focus as much on cities as on towns and how we can deal with the interlocking issues of dereliction, vacancy and urban decline. Two of the best presentations we had in our deliberations were from Orla Murphy, assistant professor in the school of architecture at UCD, and Giulia Vallone, Cork County Council architect, who has some very direct, hands-on experience. Many of the arguments they made in their submissions have found their way into the content of this plan, which is very welcome. They have expertise and knowledge on how these things are best done, including in locations such as Clonakilty, which the Minister of State rightly referred to as a exemplar of how to proceed in a predominantly rural town. Ms Murphy also talked at great length to me, the Chairman and others about the great success in this regard in Scotland. If the views of these experts are listened to as the plan is implemented, we will all be better off as it progresses in subsequent years.

One of the key issues I urge the Minister of State to do more on, and we will work constructively with him on it, is, as I said, the question of having statutory plans or even plans that may start off as non-statutory but, through some form of procedure, can become statutory. It is also crucial that we properly resource local authorities. Commitments were given in the past, for example, to have dedicated vacant homes officers in every local authority. For far too long, however, that has not been the case and the figures are still very low. It would be much better to ensure we have dedicated town centre first officers in local authorities from the outset. The Chairman of the housing committee has a wish list he keeps reminding us of and this is one of issues on it, about which he is reminding his Government colleagues. He has my full support in that. We need more than town centre first officers. We also need dedicated vacant homes officers in every local authority, particularly the large urban ones. In fact, there would be an argument in Cork city and Dublin city to have more than one, given the vacancy rate.

We also need more county architects. For instance, the lesson from Cork - I was really impressed by the council's presentation to the committee - is that where there are dedicated county architects with real experience in this field, they can bring a level of expertise in terms of good-quality place-making alongside the work of town centre first officers and vacant homes officers. There is a need to co-ordinate efforts in the best interests of all. Between now and the next budget, the Government will have to undertake a serious review of the levels of capital investment in these projects, particularly with respect to vacant homes. The target of 2,000 homes to be returned from vacancy through the compulsory purchase order, CPO, programme and several thousand through Croí Cónaithe over the lifetime of the Government is simply too low. We do not have proper data, as the Minister of State knows, on the full level of vacancy. GeoDirectory probably gives us the most accurate estimate, which is 90,000 at this time. As we know from the Scottish system, however, even if there are 90,000 vacant units, within that number will be different types and that needs to be addressed. The Government should seriously consider setting a target within its public, social and affordable housing programme of a set number of units every year, which should be at least 20%, to come from vacant and derelict stock. This would present a real challenge to local authorities but it is cheaper, quicker and more climate-friendly to use existing structures and stock than to rely on new builds. Of course, the key in all of this is affordability. If the work we are doing in our city and town centres is not affordable, people will not be able to afford to live there.

This is a project on which we will work with the Minister of State. We would like him to listen to the concerns we express and any constructive criticisms we make. We are all united in wanting to see our town centres returned to vibrancy, population growth and affordability as soon as possible.

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