Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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4. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government his views on the fact that local authority housing output from the first quarter to the third quarter of 2016 for County Tipperary amounted to three new builds; the measures his Department will take to increase this number in partnership with the local authority in County Tipperary; if his Department will allow Tipperary County Council to proceed with public private partnerships and a company (details supplied) to deliver local authority units; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9397/17]

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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According to figures supplied to me, in County Tipperary, from the first to the third quarter of 2016, the county council only constructed three new builds. This is an utter shame and a shambles. The Government has failed in this regard. Between the Departments, the Minister of State, including his role in the previous Government, and the local authorities, there has been utter failure. We have more than 3,000 people on the housing list. Will the Minister of State examine the possibility of the provision of turnkey projects through public private partnerships? If the Government is not able to do this, it should not be like the dog in the manger. Let somebody else do it because the people need houses.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Last Monday, I published a status report for social housing construction projects which lists all approved projects up to the end of 2016, including those at various stages of advancement through planning, design and construction and those delivered in 2016. This report is available on the Department's website, and I encourage people to look at it.

The status report includes 16 projects of various scale for the Tipperary County Council area, either recently completed or being advanced.

On top of this list of projects either recently completed or in the pipeline, I continue to approve further new social housing construction projects. These include, in the case of Tipperary, a further €9.5 million for the construction of 60 new social homes in Thurles, Newport and Carrick-on-Suir, which I approved earlier this month.

Local authorities have also been undertaking the targeted acquisition of properties, and over the past 12 months, I have provided almost €10 million to Tipperary County Council for this purpose.

Tipperary has also benefited from departmental funding to return vacant social housing to use, with around 276 such units supported through an Exchequer investment of over €3 million between 2014 and 2016.

Local authorities and approved housing bodies, AHBs, are also actively engaging in partnerships with private developers to deliver turnkey projects which are making an important contribution to meeting social housing need. To date, nine local authorities are engaged in 24 such contracts around the country and more such projects are possible for Tipperary or other local authorities where the housing units are suitable for social housing in these areas.

Other programmes through which we are working with Tipperary and other local authorities to meet the needs of those on the housing waiting list include the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, the housing assistance payment, HAP, and various leasing arrangements under the Department's social housing current expenditure programme. This blended delivery approach ensures that a range of delivery mechanisms are available to be used, as appropriate, in a manner that takes account of the housing market and housing need in specific areas. I accept the Deputy's frustration at the pace of delivery of some of the construction projects but I think there is a lot moving in Tipperary.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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There is nothing moving. The Minister will be moving pretty hastily in a couple of months' time looking for votes from the council members. I have the figures. For years houses were built in their hundreds, or 150, in Tipperary. I have the statistics here. Nothing has been built in the past couple of years.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I will name them.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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Please do. I cannot see them. I have asked the Minister to call in the county manager to explain what is going on. The National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, offered the Department houses. The council gave me the range of reasons it had to reject properties offered by NAMA, through the Government housing agency and its mediator. When I put the question to NAMA it insisted that it was made quite clear to all agencies that any property handed over by NAMA to a housing agency would be fully remediated to the highest living standards and would be in full compliance with all construction and building standards. Who is codding who? NAMA also said that it was clear prior to hand over that any issues relating to legal title or financial matters would be sorted out. We are being fooled, going from NAMA to the housing agencies to the county councils back to the Minister and I know how hard he is working but it is not happening. If the Minister has leadership ambitions, and I wish him all the best, he will have to do better than this.

Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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Does the Minister wish to tell the Deputy all that has been done in Tipperary?

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I have been through some of the programmes. Significant numbers of housing have been brought back into use through repairs. There has been quite a significant acquisition programme in Tipperary. It is true that only six units were completed there.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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Why?

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I can give the Deputy the names of those. There are a further 13 local authority construction schemes in the pipeline which will deliver 129 units when completed, two in Thurles, Cloughjordan, Cashel, Clonmel, Borrisoleigh, Templetuohy, Roscrea, Newport, Carrick-on-Suir and Knockanrawley. I can go through these afterwards with the Deputy if he wants. I accept the impatience to get these projects built faster but there is no shortage of funding available from the Department for these projects. We are putting in tens of millions of euro. We have the projects in the pipeline and the pressure is on the local authority to deliver.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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They have not been delivered. The council says it does not have the money. The Minister is advancing money all the time. How many new schemes has the Department approved since June of last year? The figures show that only three were built in the first three quarters of the year and none in the final quarter.

There are several blockages and too much of a delay. People only want a respectable house. Planners will not allow people who have the money and the site to build. It is a dog in the manger job. We need houses not reports. Money is announced and re-announced and re-hashed. The Minister should visit. We will take him on a tour from Cloughjordan to Clonmel, to Carrick-on-Suir, Cashel and Thurles and all the rural villages. I will show him all the voids, the empty houses that have not been refurbished. It is not happening. The county councils are saying they do not have the money, the Minister says he is smothering with money. Who is codding who? Homeless people are frustrated.

I am involved in voluntary housing and we build more houses than the Minister would build in five years and we are only a few lay people. There is no expert among us. The Minister has all the experts and nothing is happening. It beggars belief. I am on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government and I know all about the reports. We want houses to house our people who want to pay rent, not reports and announcements of money being regurgitated. It was the same with the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Kelly, who nearly smothered us with announcements but with nothing to show for them.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Let me give the Deputy some statistics. On 17 February-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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It is houses we want. A person cannot live in a statistic.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy said there is no money being made available.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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The county council is saying it.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I do not care what it is telling him. He should let me give him the facts.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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The Minister should call in the county manager.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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On 17 February over €4 million was approved for 25 social houses in Knockanrawley. On the same day over €4 million was approved for Mill Road in Thurles; almost €1.5 million in Newport and over €100,000 for Treacy Park in Carrick-on-Suir. On one day, which was only a few days ago, €10 million was made available for schemes that the Deputy says councils cannot get funding for.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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When? When?

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I am not aware of a single scheme in the country that has been refused funding where a local authority has looked for it since I came into office.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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The Minister should call in the managers.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Money is available. If there are blockages we need to solve them. That is why we have a housing delivery office-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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It is completely blocked.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy said a few minutes ago that funding was the problem. I am telling him it is not.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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What is the problem? The Minister has to get them to spend it.