Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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1. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing last met; and when it is scheduled to meet again. [20717/17]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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2. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing last met; and when future meetings are planned. [21872/17]

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 and 2 together.

The Cabinet committee last met on 10 April 2017. It is scheduled to meet again next Monday, 15 May.

It will continue to meet regularly and consider progress in implementing Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, which is a priority issue for the Government.

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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When did it last met?

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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It will continue to meet regularly and consider progress in implementing Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, which is a priority issue for the Government. It last met on Monday, 10 April 2017, and it is scheduled to meet again next Monday, 15 May.

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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The Taoiseach will be aware that this morning, daft.iepublished its latest rent price report and the details are alarming. Average rents have soared to a new record high. Rents across the State increased by 13% in the past 12 months. Supply remains at an all-time low. There are only 3,084 properties available to rent across the entire Twenty-six Counties. The introduction of rent pressure zones last December was supposed to restrain rents and limit annual increases but that is not working. In fact, there is now a two-tier rental sector and the struggling renters are caught in the middle. In the meantime, 91,000 families are on local authority housing lists, 4,875 adults and 2,546 children are in emergency accommodation and five families a day are losing their homes. Currently, I am trying to help a pregnant mother. Her current accommodation will not be suitable after her baby is born and she is desperately seeking more suitable accommodation as she has two other children. She has been on the housing list for seven years. Another citizen with two children is living at home with her parents and her sister in a three-bedroom house. She is sharing a small bedroom with two children and has been on the housing list since 2013. Every Deputy here could tell such stories. My questions are simple. When will the Government release the funds to allow local authorities to deliver 10,000 real social housing units a year? When will the Government introduce real rent certainty to stop spiralling rents? When will the Taoiseach instruct the housing Minister to introduce the Focus Ireland amendment to stop the flow of rental properties from the market and stop renting families being pushed into homelessness? Have these issues been discussed by the Cabinet housing committee?

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I have already dealt with the Government's response to the latest daft.iedata on rents. They show that asking rents rose by 13.9% in Dublin over the year to the first quarter of 2017. I pointed out to Deputy Adams and others that the rate of increase in Dublin rent prices between quarter four 2016 and quarter one 2017 was significantly lower than the rate of increase over the year.

Supply is the central problem. We cannot ignore the high and rising level of rent in certain areas of the country. That is why the Government has introduced the rent predictability measure and established the system of rent pressure zones. Money is available to local authorities like never before and incentives have been introduced like never before in terms of dealing with many of those issues. There are 504 housing construction projects around the country. They include Rath na Gloine in Louth; eight houses in Aston Village; ten houses in Clos na Manach, Carlingford; 15 houses in Scarlet Street, Drogheda; 14 houses in Castlecourt, Castlebellingham; 41 houses in Liscorrie, Bog Lane, Drogheda; 22 houses in Coulter Place, Dundalk; 35 houses in Rathmullen Road; 35 houses in another project on Rathmullen Road, Drogheda; 14 houses in Cox's Demesne phase 2a; seven houses in Cox's Demesne phase 2b; seven houses in Tierney Street, Ardee; ten houses in Barrack Street, Dundalk; 11 houses in Clontygora, Dundalk; one house in McArdle Green; 23 houses in phase 2 Boice Court, 20 houses in Boice Court phase 3; 20 houses in Fr. Finn Park phase 2 and so on.

Deputy Adams will know whether the houses are at an advanced stage of construction. The real problem is supply and every effort is being made to deal with it. That is why local authorities have been given money, incentives and opportunity to buy houses, restore vacant units and boarded up houses and there are other incentives to encourage people to bring houses back into habitable use that can be rented for a period, together with opportunities to build social housing directly by local authorities. In a number of cases private enterprise is allowed to build on local authority property. In addition, direct moneys have been put into opening up sites that were heretofore off limits.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I entirely agree with the Taoiseach. It is a matter of supply because much of what the Government is trying to do, and we tried to do in our time, is tinkering with the fundamental issue, namely, that we need to have more houses. One of the early wins we thought we could have is to get the voids back into play. The Taoiseach will recall that in our time in government we put in place a vacant properties programme to turn around council voids. On Friday last, several years after we identified getting voids back into play, as a first priority, we were told €24 million is now being allocated to refurbish 1,400 council voids, including 112 in Cork and 539 in Dublin. How can that still be the case if the whole issue of getting houses back into serviceable use is the No. 1 priority? How is it that such a scale of empty houses is still there to be addressed?

It is suggested by the National Oversight & Audit Commission that some local authorities are leaving units vacant until they assess what central Government will do and they will not use their own resources for that purpose. Those involved in that forum seem to think that local authorities may be purposely delaying the refurbishment of vacant homes to avoid using their own resources. There needs to be a very clear directive from Government, with a clear timeline that the normal turnaround period should be a matter of weeks unless there is very serious refurbishment to be made, and each of those should be individually notified to the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government. I ask the Taoiseach to deal with the issue as a matter of urgency.

My second question relates to the proposal to allow developers to build on State lands. Perhaps that has great merits but we need to know exactly what lands are going to be used and for what purpose. We need to know what developments are planned and what social good will accrue because developers have been invited to build homes under a licence agreement and there is a variety of other mechanisms to be deployed. We would like to see specific site-by-site programmes to ensure we are getting the best social value because such land needs to be developed in the public interest, hopefully, by local authorities.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Howlin raised a number of important points. The Rebuilding Ireland housing land map was launched by the Minister, Deputy Coveney, on 27 April. It is the first national map of its kind. By far the best way to track progress under Rebuilding Ireland is through such a map. It represents both the opportunity to deliver housing and also the individual data on active delivery from sites around the country. In other words, one knows what is going on. The mapping exercise is a vital, initial strategic step in the new State housing land management strategy being developed under Ireland 2040, the national planning framework. No doubt the map will evolve as we interface with key developers and stakeholders in the public and private sectors who are actively delivering housing. Some 2,000 ha of land were identified and there are approximately 800 sites between local authorities, the Housing Agency and other State and semi-State bodies. Taking a conservative estimate of 25 units per hectare, that is potentially 50,000 homes. In terms of Rebuilding Ireland it is fundamental that the State and in particular housing authorities do everything in their power to deliver quality social and affordable mixed tenure housing from those sites.

There are four key sites that can deliver 3,000 badly needed homes. South Dublin County Council intends to deliver approximately 900 social and affordable homes at Kilcarberry, Clondalkin. A Dublin City Council housing land initiative has sites at Infirmary Road, also known as O'Devaney Gardens, St. Michael's Estate on Emmet Road, and Oscar Traynor Road which will deliver approximately 2,000 social and affordable houses. The State will also fund 30% of social housing on those four sites, which is approximately 900 newly built social houses. They will be fully integrated into brand new housing schemes in various locations in Dublin. A total of 30 sites have been identified on State and semi-State lands amounting to 200 ha in prime locations such as Galway Port, and 18 acres at the CIE-Ceannt Station site right in the centre of Galway city which is being master planned. All of those details are available for Deputy Howlin to examine.

I met with the chief executive of Deputy Howlin's local authority the other day. I understand that in Enniscorthy where planning permission has been granted and everything else is ready to go the local authority has been able to provide three-bedroom social housing in approximately 13 weeks. If that is true, which I hope it is, that is an incredible operation. That suggests we might be falling foul of public procurement issues, objections and other issues causing delay in other places. When rapid build was first introduced for housing it seemed to take an inordinately long time. However, if in some local authorities, one of which I came across myself by chance, it is possible to do that if all systems are go and one can build house X and house Y in such a period the question is why we cannot do it elsewhere. The Ministers are looking at the issue with the housing unit to examine whether there are delays that could be avoided. That was the case when Deputy Howlin was in government. For one reason or another when we started to use rapid build housing it took a long time.

Deputy Howlin also inquired about Government measures and funding being made available. One would get lost in the figures sometimes.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Could the Taoiseach respond about the voids and putting on pressure to bring them back into use?

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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A total of €98 million was allocated in 2017 for the Rebuilding Ireland initiative. There is a target that by mid-2017 the use of hotels for emergency accommodation would be eliminated. I am assured by the Minister that the target can be met. I agree it will be a very tight timeframe.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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What about refurbishing hotels and calling them something else?

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I thank the Taoiseach. We are over time.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I am sorry, a Cheann Comhairle.

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I just heard the Taoiseach say that he came across a local authority "by chance" and that one would get lost in the figures. That is exactly the problem. A major lesson the Government should have learned in the past six years is that a policy of over-hyping and under-achieving will catch up with one. That is what has happened in relation to housing.

The Taoiseach will recall that various Ministers for the Environment in recent years have all had different strategies and have announced a long series of actions. In concrete terms, however, it has meant very little on the ground - about 8,000 new builds over the last four to five years. The CSO's figures have blown a hole in all of the announcements and various claims made for new house builds.

I can remember the former Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, saying everything was in hand; that they were on top of it and were going to have great results. It goes on. Self praise and exaggerated claims pale in comparison with the reality on the ground, including what has happened over the last 12 months. Social housing lists continue to grow and housing supply is at historically low levels, while house prices are increasing well ahead of most people's ability to afford them.

It has been revealed today that rents have climbed dramatically, while supply is only a fraction of demand. It is feeding into a sense of helplessness regarding the homelessness crisis. The Taoiseach and the Government need to admit that they are not getting on top of this matter. Government policies are not penetrating with the required degree of urgency. The Cabinet sub-committee on housing must acknowledge that it has not delivered. Some alternative proposals should now be considered, particularly in terms of reducing the cost of building, including VAT and other costs.

The help-to-buy scheme has inflated house prices, which is its fundamental contribution to the situation. It has increased the price of housing generally and has not added to supply in any shape or form. The Government's execution and delivery proposals are failing abysmally. We do not need any more plans or strategies. We need to start building and getting some action on the ground.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I have here a list of 504 housing construction projects all over the country. This makes real sense because it puts figures and details on locations. The list is available for everyone to see on the Department's website. Instead of talking about €98 million being available for rebuilding in Ireland in 2017, one can go through the individual units that are being constructed in groups of 20 to 50. That makes real sense for people who are going to live in these houses and know that the houses will be allocated to them. Therefore I do not accept what the Deputy has said.

Some 3,000 households came out of homelessness in 2016, which is a substantial increase on what was there before. The moneys that have been allocated include Dublin City Council's winter initiative which delivered 200 extra beds for rough sleepers on the streets due to high rents, and others in hotels and hostels. All of these initiatives are part of the action plan.

I do not want to read out the figures for the millions being allocated, but previous measures taken by government to tackle the costs associated with the provision of housing included reduced development contributions, a development contribution rebate scheme, changes to the Part 5 regime and new apartment guidelines. They were all brought in to reduce costs because we met with the Construction Industry Federation and so many others.

The Deputy knows that this city is creeping northwards, north-westwards and westwards. In another 15 years, if it continues like that, it will be out near Mullingar with single houses. Dublin City Council has its views on this. Every city in the world has buildings which exceed the maximum height allowed in Dublin. It is not for me to set a fix on this. If developers and others involved in construction say they cannot make a profit given the guidelines and height restrictions, then we should give serious consideration to building somewhat higher in order to reduce the cost of development. Profit is not a dirty word in this context because it is about providing housing accommodation for people. One cannot sell a single apartment until the block is ready for sale, however.

The Deputy asked about the reduction of costs but that was dealt with in reduced development contributions, the rebate scheme, changes to part 5 and new apartment guidelines. It is all about supply and more money than ever before has been allocated in a variety of ways to make an impact on this. It is working but obviously we are catching up on a big curve here.