David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am happy the Ceann Comhairle's office selected this matter and the Minister of State is here to respond. I have been looking through the Housing for All local authority affordable housing delivery targets. The number is 189 for Cork County Council between 2022 and 2026, which does not seem very ambitious. In many other counties the number is higher and, for example, Fingal has a target of 981. Straight away, this begs the question as to how come there will be so few houses built in the Cork County Council area.

I also notice a number of applications have been made to the Department. There were four made in February. The most recent response I got from the Department, and the Minister of State might have something new to add today, is that the Department is still assessing these. As they cannot move on until that is done, why is it taking so long? It is quite frustrating when we see first a low number and then the amount of time it takes for something to go through the bureaucracy to get clearance to start work on the houses. One cannot just flick a switch with this and the parties involved need to get planning permission, go for tendering, appoint a builder and all that goes with it. In the middle of that there may be objections to the building.

This brings me to a second point. I know the Minister of State is familiar with the Midleton area, where I am from, for all kinds of reasons. It has the N25 between Carrigtohill and Midleton, which is supposed to be upgraded. It is an extraordinarily busy road, with 30,000 car movements per day. It is very dangerous and there are some crossings across the carriageway that are very dangerous. There have been some accidents. There are slip roads into the carriageway that are very short and I have seen very close misses and accidents around them. The former Amgen site is at one end of it, with 64 ha of prime IDA Ireland land that cannot be used because the road is not fit for purpose. We are supposed to build 6,000 houses at another end of it in time.

A number of applications were made recently to build houses at the location but Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, objected because the road is not up to standard. Two of the affordable housing proposals are in that area and they will not go ahead either because the road is not up to standard. The Minister for Transport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has blocked work on the road, which means all this planned housing is at risk. That will be a huge challenge.

The water supply plant for Midleton is at capacity and we are waiting for Irish Water to put down pipes and do a job on that. We are told it will be done by the end of next year, maybe, but again nothing can happen and we cannot build a doghouse in the town. Mitchelstown is in the same position until this is done. That is another constraint.

There are many such worries and constraints but at the same time I have people contacting me every day wanting to know how to get or build a house. There is a local authority home loan scheme, and this was raised yesterday evening by Deputy Colm Burke during Question Time as well. I support him in doing that as it is an extraordinarily slow and bureaucratic scheme. It is very frustrating as well. I know people with good incomes who have been refused on that scheme. Other people want to do up properties over a shop and they have been refused and so on. They are not told the reasons for the refusal. That must be sorted out too.

There are many issues that can and should be tackled. I ask the Minister of State to ensure that will happen so we can get this process moving.

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