Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of my colleagues, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, I welcome the opportunity to speak on the important issue of our capital city.

I wish to inform the House of my Department's policy initiatives in Dublin city, including local authority funding, emergency services and housing. Like all local authorities, Dublin City Council is an independent statutory body with reserved functions vested in its elected members, and the staffing and organisational arrangements necessary to carry out those functions are the responsibility of its chief executive. Nonetheless, much of what I have to say refers to the excellent work of Dublin City Council. The national planning framework sets out a vision and strategy for Ireland in 2040 and acknowledges the importance of communities. It seeks to achieve more regionally-balanced urban and compact growth and recognises the critical role to be played by Dublin and other cities. Ireland performs well in the areas of economic outlook and stability but less so in those of quality of life and environmental performance. Dublin ranks outside the top 30 cities in the world for livability. I acknowledge there is much to do and wish to share some of the work being done.

My Department provided €737 million in 2020, €724 million in 2021 and over €305 million to the end of August 2022 to Dublin City Council. This includes unprecedented support provided during the Covid-19 pandemic, including €260 million in respect of a rates waiver 2020 and 2021 and €54 million for Covid-related extra costs and lost income. For 2023, the Government is allocating €421 million to support local authorities to meet additional pay costs arising specifically as a result of the pay agreements and the unwinding of the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI. This will ensure they have the necessary resources to provide essential public services. In fact, local authorities provide in excess of 1,000 services. The additional pay allocation for Dublin City Council for 2022 is over €46 million and this will rise to over €62 million in 2023.

My Department is very aware of the pressures of inflation and rising energy costs on local authorities.

We negotiated an additional €60 million supplementary support for the local government sector, with a provisional allocation for Dublin City Council of €5 million.

As committed to in the programme for Government, the move to 100% retention of the local property tax, LPT, will take place in 2023. For Dublin City Council, this will mean a surplus above its funding baseline, a greater proportion of which will be available to it in 2023. A comprehensive review of the current LPT baselines is to start in the coming months, including the overall funding position of Dublin City Council and other local authorities.

The council provides a number of emergency services, Dublin Fire Brigade being chief among them. It provides fire and rescue services to the four Dublin local authorities and an ambulance service on behalf of the HSE. Dublin Fire Brigade saves lives but also prevents damage to residential and commercial property daily. It serves a population of nearly 1.5 million people across 14 fire stations and has a staff of almost 1,000. Over the recent Hallowe'en period it received 234 calls which 169 related to bonfires during Hallowe'en. A campaign to target stockpiles of bonfire materials contributed to lowering the number of incidents. Local authorities have a budget of approximately €240 million annually for fire services. Additional support for development and maintenance comes from my Department’s capital programme.

The requirements of Dublin are somewhat unique and we are evaluating funding needs over the coming years. Dublin will receive money for appliances and for equipment and will benefit from the significant investment in communications infrastructure and training, with €27.7 million allocated to maintaining its fleet. The National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management in my Department is working closely with Dublin City Council on new stations at North Strand and in west Dublin, with funding identified within the capital programme. The directorate issues an annual training programme which supports the delivery of effective services and provides standards and guidance on managing operational activities, including firefighting in high-rise buildings. Covid-19 presented challenges to recruiting and training new staff in Dublin. A plan was developed to increase the numbers across ranks and implementation has commenced. Some 108 recruits entered service in 2022 with 96 projected for next year. Dublin Fire Brigade will seek to maintain a panel of recruits to fill vacancies as they arise.

Moving on to housing, Dublin Simon Community works with the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive to provide outreach and engagement for adults who are sleeping rough. In the immediate term, more than 400 additional emergency accommodation beds are coming on stream in Dublin through a combination of new short-term leasing arrangements, the opening of a new facility and the reopening of a facility that was temporarily closed for essential works. Over half of these beds will be operational in the coming weeks and the remainder will come on stream in subsequent months. The Dublin Region Homeless Executive is entering into a leasing arrangement to secure the ongoing and inclusive use of a further 415 beds. The executive also recently activated its cold-weather strategy for 2022-2023 in the Dublin region.

Housing First is a key response to ending long-term homelessness among those with complex health and mental health needs. It provides the most vulnerable with a home for life, as well as wraparound supports. There are more than 420 individuals in a Housing First tenancy in the Dublin region. Over 700 new tenancies will be delivered under the new Housing First national implementation plan.

The housing assistance payment, HAP, discretion rate has been increased for all local authorities and this will secure tenancies to protect more families from homelessness. Measures under recently enacted legislation defer no-fault tenancy terminations until after March 2023, protecting renters who would otherwise face homelessness this winter. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, has made it clear to local authorities that if tenants risk being made homeless due to a landlord selling the property, my Department will support the local authority to purchase the property.

With funding of over €4 billion, Housing for All aims to address social, affordable and private housing provision by increasing supply and thereby improving access to affordable rental homes. The Government is committed to building an average of 33,000 homes annually over the plan’s lifetime. The plan commits to building more than 9,000 social homes next year. It includes programmes for compulsory purchase of vacant properties, removing disincentives to selling or renting unused homes and imposing levies on vacant and derelict sites. Affordability measures are taking effect and a review of the planning system is almost complete. The Government has extended the first phase of Project Tosaigh, which is helping to create affordable and social housing out of other construction projects that cannot be completed as originally planned.

The Croí Cónaithe scheme has allocated €450 million until 2026 for the delivery of up to 5,000 apartments in our cities. Part of the Croí Cónaithe fund, namely, the vacant property refurbishment grant, is designed to boost home ownership in urban centres supporting people to refurbish vacant and derelict properties as housing, with grants of up to €50,000.

The living city initiative targets historic inner city areas and aims to regenerate heritage sites by offering income or corporation tax relief. The initiative aims to increase the supply of residential units in the market, while maintaining our historic buildings and creating more vibrant cities. The urban regeneration and development fund aims to deliver more compact sustainable development in Dublin with part-funding of regeneration and rejuvenation. By increasing residential and mixed-use development in the city; it will make Dublin a more attractive and vibrant city. My Department has allocated €2 billion in funding up to 2027 across the State.

The north inner city concept area is one of the eight regeneration projects in Dublin. Its goal is to achieve long-term sustainable regeneration around Smithfield and Parnell Square. The works include restoring heritage sites, promoting pedestrianisation and cycling, a new city library on Parnell Square and improving paving and street furniture. The restoration and interpretation of the Moore Street national monument by the National Monuments Service, NMS, and the OPW will further enhance the vibrancy of the city centre.

Under the North East Inner City, NEIC, initiative, the Department of Rural and Community Development is providing €7.5 million towards the regeneration of this area in 2022 to help ensure that the recommendations of the Mulvey report are implemented. The programme implementation board is focusing work on six areas, namely, enhanced policing, maximising education, training and employment opportunities, family well-being, enhancing community well-being and the physical environment, substance use and misuse and inclusion health, together with the alignment of services. Capital projects which received Department of Rural and Community Development funding include the Rutland Street community hub, Diamond Park redevelopment, Charleville Mall Library, and the NEIC greening strategy implementation.

Finally, I will highlight just two initiatives administered by Dublin City Council and funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development. These are the community enhancement programme and the community activities fund. The community enhancement programme provides capital funding to community groups with 15 groups sharing over €200,000 in 2021. This money funds facility development in disadvantaged areas, typically by improving buildings, developing community amenities and purchasing equipment. This year the community activities fund provided over €400,000 to 61 priority target groups agreed by the Dublin city local community development committee. These non-profit voluntary groups tackle mental health challenges and isolation, in addition to issues facing Travellers, the Roma community, the long-term unemployed, new communities, parents and marginalised children.

There is so much more to discuss and we look forward to a very important debate on Dublin city.

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