Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I take this opportunity to congratulate the Ministers of State, Deputies Dillon and Cummins. Deputy Cummins served on the housing committee, which sets him up well for the question I am about to put before him. The site on Oscar Traynor Road is incredibly important in the overall Housing For All programme and the overall programme of State construction of public housing on public land. There are more than 800 houses, comprising cost-rental, affordable purchase and social housing. It was hoped we could get rapid delivery.

As we move into the second term of Housing For All, delivery has to be the key objective on every site where we have made investment. Unfortunately, when I visited the Oscar Traynor Road site on Friday, no activity was taking place. There is no activity on the entire site, although the road network has been laid out, the parks and landscaping are already in place and many of the houses are either under construction or, in some cases, finished. There would appear to be an impasse between Dublin City Council's building control unit, Glenveagh, which is the provider of the houses, and Dublin City Council, which is the client.

I welcome the fact there are frequent, regular and unannounced checks on housing development. This is an important step that will prevent the mistakes of the past being repeated. Whatever the issue is on site, Dublin City Council and Glenveagh need to come together to ensure that construction gets back up and running and that we have timely and rapid delivery of homes at the site. Yesterday, Dublin City Council's assistant city manager for housing made a report to councillors and referred to issues with radon barriers, dormer windows, plaster rendering and moisture. These are all issues that would, I imagine, be readily resolvable if we could get everybody around the table. At this stage, that is what we need.

The tricky position for Dublin City Council is that it is the regulatory authority. It is responsible for building control and, separately, it is the client on the site. It is not only Dublin City Council that is the client because the State and the Department are funding the overall development on the site. There is an onus on everyone to get around the table to try to resolve whatever issues are there and ensure we can continue construction on the site.

The other angle is that many people did not support this project and voted against it when it came before the council. They have deliberately misconstrued the very heavily subsidised prices on the site. One of the biggest misnomers I found during the election was that houses were for sale on this site for €500,000. Those were the prices before reductions of more than €100,000 in some cases. There were also further reductions when we take into account other subsidies under Housing For All. In many cases, we had three-bedroom homes coming in at €360,000 or €370,000. There will be more details on this as the site develops. This is why people want to buy homes on the site. These will be affordable homes. They are in a part of the city where there is not a great deal of private development because it is mostly apartment development in the city. This is why homes are required and why we need to make sure the site is delivered. Regardless of what happens on the site I ask that it be a continuing priority of the Minister of State and the Minister. This is a flagship project for Housing For All and for the State in the context of being involved in the provision of housing. We have to make sure it is a good example and not a bad one.

See this speech in context