Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish both the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Kevin Boxer Moran, the best of luck in their new portfolios.

The first thing is that I think everyone is in agreement with Croí Cónaithe. It is a good thing and is getting more houses done. I think the cabin at the back of the house is a good thing. I would like if it was 200 sq. ft bigger, the same size as the modular homes, but if anything is good let us say that it is good if it all helps in the housing sector.

Let us look at the facts, however, in social and affordable housing. Why do we have architects designing houses in 26 or 30 different councils when we should have a strategic type of house done? There should be two-, three- or four-bedroom houses for all different counties in order that it is standardised and no people are sending paper over and back, scratching their heads and wondering what they will do next with it.

We also should be able to let smaller builders in because at the moment, if you have not done a Government job within the past three years you cannot tender, even though you might have built 100 houses out in the private sector. That is absolutely crazy.

It is the same with Irish Water. A bidder could have laid 5,000 km of pipe for the councils down through the years on group water schemes but, unfortunately, you cannot lay a pipe for Irish Water or tender for it because you did not do jobs for it before. It is horrendous how we are blocking it.

On top of that, let us go to sewerage. In fairness to the former housing Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, he sent out a package each year. It was not a big amount and it was not going to do the whole country but for towns which did not have Irish Water or sewerage schemes, this was to basically fund the putting in of a sewerage scheme. To this day not one penny of this has been spent. Why? This is because the councils are to sign it over to Irish Water and back and over again. If that bureaucracy is not cut out, you can give all of the money you want in the world to housing but it will not be done because we have people at desks who are not driving the agenda on by using a bit of cop on and common sense as regards how to do it.

Furthermore, on council or social housing, if someone dies and leaves a house, once for that house, it will get €11,000 from the Department to do it up. If someone came to my house this minute, the council would not take it because there would be the handle of a door or something not right. These houses have to be perfect and you will get €11,000 once. If you have to go to the full extremes of putting in electric heaters and all of that crack in a full retrofit, the housing Department will give them €25,000 to €30,000 and it could cost €80,000. The councils do not have the money. They will pick the best houses and after that, they leave the rest. People give out about the councils having 4,000 or 5,000 houses and not doing work on them. That is why; it is very simple. Someone within the Department needs to decide what they are doing about that.

Driving forward, we need Irish Water, as has been said by several Members, to be properly funded. It needs to be properly funded with conditions of efficiency because it has become top-heavy and is like the HSE now. A long time ago I remember when Jerry Grant was there and it was a fairly efficient outfit. Since then, whatever has gone wrong, it takes 22 weeks to get a decision even to get water or sewerage. That is absolutely crazy. You should have a decision within two to four weeks as to whether water would be provided. There is either water going along the side of the road with the appropriate pressure or there is not. On top of that, Irish Water must be funded. If you do not have roads, sewerage, and water, you will not be building any houses. Let no one go codding themselves about that.

We need to focus on labour because we all know what went on last year. If I was a builder, building 300 or 400 houses, I would put in a commencement notice because I would get the money back. That is it and it showed in two spikes in the year you look at the chart. People then decided that we are building this amount of houses. Anybody who knows anything about building knew that it was not going to happen. Those are the two spikes which happened last year. We need to move on from that. It is all right blaming everyone but we need to decide how we are going to drive it in on and plan it.

Another point is that every council in this country is different. There could be a situation where a person is trying to do up an old house in which a chimney may have been cracked a few years earlier and where the person decided that rather than letting water down, he or she would take down the chimney and put slates over it. Such a person could not then get a planning exemption from the council because he or she had interfered with the house. If that is the type of bureaucracy that is going on in planning departments, we are going nowhere.

Furthermore, as has been said earlier, the councils need to be better resourced for doing all of that type of work. Why do not we go into a system of giving smaller builders five or ten houses and getting a site done out? To be frank, as has been said earlier by Deputy Kenny, affordable housing does not exist in many counties. To be honest, some councils do not even know how to go about it. We need to promote and try to get as many houses done as efficiently as possible because with the figures I am seeing at the moment, God help anybody who is trying to buy a house in Dublin at present. It is like lotto figures, which you would have to win to afford a house in Dublin. These are people who deserve to have a home.

Going forward, we need to take a completely different look at rural housing at the moment. If a person's family comes from a farm, or whatever, they should be able to build on that farm. That is having houses built. This is about an emergency now. Thankfully, the electricity came to all parts of Ireland years ago, the water is around and thankfully we have a road. What is the big idea then that we should not build on it because people can work from home now with the broadband which will be a help?

I ask the Minister to concentrate on those few points I have mentioned. These are small tweaks within his Department, which is frustrating people at building and is blocking people from tendering, to get more efficiency. If he does that, he will free things up. It is not the big monstrous things which will solve everything but it might be the small tweaks which will help. I wish him the best of luck.

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