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

As the Minister will know, this is a project that has strong cross-party support. We worked together in opposition to convince the then Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy English, to progress this project. I am hoping that we can continue to do the same in the future. There are two specific problems. The question I have relates to the stage after planning is approved. The Minister's Department recently published the report into a review of the four-stage process, particularly for mixed tenure projects. The difficulty is that there is nothing in that document that suggests, for example, that there will be any acceleration of that approval process for this project. I urge the Minister, particularly in respect of recommendation 8 of that report on the single decision-maker, to use the St. Michael's estate site as a pilot to test run a single point of decision-making to speed it up. We cannot have a two- to four-year approval, tendering and procurement process, which is currently how long it is taking in large projects such as this elsewhere in the country. I also urge the Minister to look the finances again. I ask him not just to look at the higher level of the affordable housing fund, but to stretch out the term of the loans to bring the rents below €1,000 a month.

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