Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am beginning to worry that the Minister does not understand what is actually happening in his Department. I urge him to talk to local authority directors of housing and the Irish Council for Social Housing. I will forward him the details on the individual schemes by way of email after this meeting. Typically, a decision on an application from an AHB – for example, for the capital advance leasing facility – will be made in six to eight weeks. There was a large number of applications at the start of this year that were three or four months awaiting a decision. The Minister brought a memorandum to the Cabinet that promised to unblock the 3,000 units, but I am hearing that about half of the approvals to approved housing bodies related to the AHB portion of the 3,000 units have yet to be subject to due diligence in the Department and notification to the AHBs. I am hearing of AHBs with CALF, CREL and CAS applications that have been in the system for many months, which is undermining their ability to start going through the pipeline and their ability in respect of builders and developers of their turnkeys. The position is similar with local authorities. In other counties, there are schemes or homes that are finished but empty because CALF, CREL or SHIP funding has not been approved. The homes cannot be acquired and people cannot move in.

I urge the Minister to consider this again because what he is saying is simply not reflective of what I am hearing from local authorities, AHBs and builders.

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