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

While we all welcome Housing for All, there are a few challenges in it. I will talk about Carlow, my home town where we do not have a full-time homeless prevention officer or co-ordinator. We only have contract posts and that is far below what is acceptable. Contract posts are an issue in local authorities and one to which I will return another day.

Increasing housing supply and delivering sustainable and affordable homes for people is the Government's top priority but the collapse of the private rental market is a huge concern. This market is not going to recover in the short to medium term so market intervention is needed. While the introduction over the past 12 months of three schemes, namely the First Home scheme, the local authority affordable purchase scheme and the revised local authority home loan scheme to support the purchase of affordable homes, is really welcome, we need to do a lot more. It is vital that local authorities are allowed to make more acquisitions in 2023 to take some pressure off. The Department needs to speed up the approval process for social housing projects and procurement, SHPP, the capital assistance scheme, CAS and the capital advance leasing facility, CALF, and speed up payments to the local authorities.

I am particularly concerned by the lack of emergency accommodation, especially for victims of domestic violence. Carlow does not yet have a refuge. We have some safe homes provided by the local authority, which I welcome, but we do not have enough. We have a two-family emergency accommodation unit but only one family is being housed in it at the moment because of Covid.

I also want to speak about legislation that needs to be changed. Currently local authorities cannot implement regulation 49 for people in social housing and need an approved housing body, AHB, to manage them. There is no such thing as a temporary licence. AHBs deal with RTB houses and they are the sensible model for that in terms of looking after it. This kind of accommodation is so important. What steps are being taken with regard to regulation 49? I ask the Minister to respond on that.

The Minister told the House today about 282 tenancies under the Housing First programme. That programme needs to be extended and expanded because the current numbers are very low. When we talk about supporting the most vulnerable, we must also see local authorities providing resources for Traveller liaison offers, TLOs. We must also see an extension to the repair and leasing scheme in 2023. I suggest that the acquisition ceiling limit for houses that require special adaptation grants be increased. The energy efficiency programme requires better funding and I would like to see the removal of the fuel-poverty-provided funding for self-help grants.

These are all major issues that, if addressed quickly, would play a significant role in enabling local authorities to provide housing faster. Information is also an important issue. I also want to ask the Minister about modular buildings which I have brought up several times in this Chamber. I have introduced the Minister to various companies but I have had no feedback on this. We need to see as many houses built as possible, as quickly as possible and modular housing can be a short-term, if not a long-term solution. The modular method allows for the building of a lot of houses quickly and I ask the Minister to come back to me on that.

Finally, I want to reference the 10% concrete product levy announced in the budget. I have had hundreds of phone calls about it from people who are building their first house, from farmers and many others. I do not think there is a group that has not contacted me. It is a huge concern and I ask that we look at it.

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