Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Coming from a construction background, at times I get frustrated by the fact things are not being done at a quicker pace. The supply of housing is the issue and the pace of supply is what is causing the problem.

I will go through the local authority processes. If a local authority buys a site to build housing, it has to appoint a design team and then do the design to get the Part 8 planning. Following on from that, detailed design has to be done, a procurement process takes place and then, lo and behold, we get to the construction phase. All through each of those stages, the county council has to go back to the Department for approval and during all of that process, time is lost.

We have a very good example in the devolved schools scheme, where the boards of management of schools were devolved the money to carry out the project, to employ the design team and to get all the work done, and they did not have to keep coming back. They were to come back just to get approval to sign a contract with the contractor. For the life of me, I cannot understand why we cannot devolve more responsibility to the local authorities and to finance and resource them so they do the job right.

People often talk about the fast-track building of houses as if the problem is on the site. It is not. The builders can build if they get the job to do, but the delay is in getting through all of the processes to get it to the stage where we can actually build the houses. Offsite construction is a great principle. The digitalisation of construction, the use of building information modelling and all of that helps, but it does not help to close the gap in terms of getting from project inception to having the keys handed over to people. At present, it is five or maybe even six years. While we are fighting against the tide of lack of supply, it is important we take some, if not drastic steps, then steps that are brave, and to try that with the local authorities.

We should also have another look at the Croí Cónaithe scheme for vacant properties. In that regard, I suggest there are a lot of vacant properties which first-time buyers or first-time principal owners will not be able to go into. We should be able to extend the scheme to support somebody who owns a derelict house to refurbish it, rent it or sell it off. In that way, we will make more of the existing stock that is lying there and bring it back into use.

There must be constraints on that but Croí Cónaithe is a good scheme and a great start. We have had it in the towns and now we have it in the rural areas. We must be sure we do not leave some houses out because they do not meet the criteria. Why must a house be two years vacant to be eligible? The scheme rules out some houses that are vacant and will continue to be, because at the moment they must have been vacant for two years.

We talk about young people. I was at a funeral last weekend and met a couple of people going in who were talking about football, football clubs and whatever. In one parish last weekend, five young people left to go to Australia. They were qualified nurses, qualified carpenters and an accountant. They were leaving by choice, but the choice was between staying in Ireland and paying huge rent for a property if they want to have their independence and going to Australia or some other country where they can have a good lifestyle and work-life balance while not being held down by trying to pay rent or all that goes with that. We are finding people are now emigrating because they want to get a chance at life and at independence and we cannot blame them for that. This housing situation is very serious. The future of our country depends on how we act now to ensure we encourage people we have educated and spent a lot of money on to remain here.

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