John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

I might say one thing, a Leas Cheann-Comhairle, about the provision of public housing. I have consistently found it frustrating that it takes 59 weeks - that is the Department's own estimate - to bring a public housing project from the initial concept to the signing of contracts to begin construction of that project. That is immensely frustrating. It is too long. There is currently a four-stage process on which the local authority must engage with the Department, and approval must be sought at each stage. I think we are duplicating work. As my colleague Deputy McAuliffe said some moments ago, the local authority should be advised that it has a certain budget and that the Department would like to see a certain number of units being developed based on that budget, rather than this toing and froing, which is taking too long.

The programme for Government commits the Government to reducing the four-stage approval process to a single-step process. We should do that at the earliest possible opportunity.

We need to look at the funding for capital acquisition, tenant in situ and the capital advance leasing facility. Local authorities and approved housing bodies are advising us that they are finding the approval process challenging, lengthy and burdensome. That is delaying the commencement of public housing development. We need to look at that, streamline it and get quicker decisions.

See this speech in context