Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)

I thank the Deputy for raising what I know is an absolute priority for him and his constituents. He is absolutely passionate about achieving an outcome and delivery above all else. Housing is the number one priority for this Government. Making sure we can deliver housing for every citizen who needs it, be it in urban or rural areas, is the number one priority. That is why we are absolutely committed to delivering on our key objectives for infrastructure to support the delivery of the more than 300,000 houses we committed to by 2030.

While scaling up capacity is an enormous challenge, we appreciate that this can be facilitated through appropriate Government supports to increase the capacity for critical infrastructure. This is something we have really focused in on. How do we make sure we unlock where there are blockages, challenges and issues that are preventing housing developments from progressing? We are doing a number of things in this regard.

First, we have established the new infrastructure division within the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform and that will lead to a process of infrastructure reform. To complement and work with that, the new housing activation office in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage will identify what the barriers and challenges are to ensure we can open up any infrastructure needed to enable housing development.

In terms of Uisce Éireann in particular, I acknowledge the Deputy is referencing areas where it is not perhaps providing the support as quickly as we need it. A huge amount has been invested in Uisce Éireann. We have ramped up capital delivery. It has gone from €300 million in 2014 to roughly €1.3 billion in 2024. It is a significant investment over the ten years. Some €2.2 billion has been provided to Uisce Éireann again for this year. We are investing additional capital under the NDP as well to facilitate, in particular, housing developments in our towns. It is really important as significant investment is made into Uisce Éireann that we can see very clearly how that then correlates to additional housing developments and the opening up of new developments.

We are supporting investment in electricity. Almost 150,000 homes and businesses have been connected. This is supported through ESB Networks and EirGrid. In addition, we have the Planning and Development Act, which took a huge amount of time to progress during the previous Government but which is now being implemented and commenced.

To respond to the Deputy's point, what we now need to do is to make sure we are doing everything possible to apply common sense and to ensure that where Uisce Éireann is perhaps not in a position in smaller developments in rural areas to proceed as quickly as we would like, or would need, that we can put in place other measures. It is credible and something the Minister, Deputy Browne, is looking at and is happy to engage further, in conjunction with the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins. In a small number of situations, where there is a need for infrastructure to be put in place immediately in smaller developments, we could work with local private providers, making sure the standards were adhered to and were at a particular level similar to that of Irish Water. That is so that this work could happen immediately and we could unlock any of the barriers re preventing these smaller rural towns, villages or developments from providing homes for our young people, families and those who need them most. I commend the Deputy on putting forward what I think is a really workable solution and something I know the Department is very open to.

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