Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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7. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the procedures and processes his Department has put in place to track the progress being made by each local authority on the social housing projects currently under construction; if he receives detailed monthly progress reports on each of the projects; and the measures his Department has at its disposal if it is of the view that a local authority is not making fast enough progress on delivering a social housing project. [25037/17]

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister the procedures and processes his Department has put in place to track the progress being made by each local authority on the social housing projects currently under construction; if he receives detailed monthly progress reports on each of the projects; and the measures his Department has at its disposal if it is of the view that a local authority is not making fast enough progress on delivering social housing projects.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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My Department engages on a continuous basis with local authorities in regard to the advancement of all social housing construction projects.  That is done at both a Departmental and Ministerial level. Deputy Casey has attended meetings at which we tried to engage with officials and local authority members to impress upon them the urgency of moving these projects toward completion and spending the money that has been allocated to social housing projects. That work is ongoing. I appreciate the Deputy's assistance in that regard.

The Department meets with each local authority on a quarterly basis, with a focus on accelerating projects, addressing issues that might give rise to delays and ensuring projects are delivered in a high quality and value-for-money manner as speedily as possible. There are now over 600 social housing construction projects, which will deliver over 10,000 social housing units, listed in the status report on social housing construction projects. Not everyone agrees with those figures but they are facts and can be checked. I have dealt with Deputy Ó Broin's facts before and they are not always correct.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I will be addressing that issue.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The most recent version of the status report on social housing construction projects was published last week. The report, which represents the construction pipeline picture at the end of quarter 1 of 2017, sets out the position on each individual project, which is possible because of the project-by-project tracking that the Department does with the local authorities. The publication of the quarterly status report is a valuable part of the oversight for these projects as it allows Members, councillors, stakeholders and the public to view the status of projects in their areas and to track their progress over time. The pipeline of projects increased by some 1,600 units in quarter 1 of 2017 alone.

In addition to the systematic arrangements for engagement between the Department and local authorities, as I have said, Minister Coveney and I have regular engagements with local authorities regarding their social housing programmes. These interactions, at both ministerial and departmental levels, will continue in the months and years ahead. It is important that is done because we are trying to strengthen the relationship between the Department and local authorities at staff and political levels. We have engaged with all parties on this issue. To strengthen that relationship is the right way deal with this issue. Social housing provision targets will only be achieved with the co-operation of local authorities and the approved housing bodies. Local authorities are central to this issue and have a significant role to play. We will continue to support their part in the process.

Social housing figures are published in order that Deputy Ó Broin and others can track the figures and understand the facts. Figures published are based on evidence and are not made up.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for his response. I am aware of the quarterly reports. One battle in regard to them was that they be published in an open source format in which the figures could be analysed and the details examined. All Members must be realistic and honestly admit that a blame game is still taking place between the Department and local authorities. That has gone on for more than a year, even after the Minister, with the best of intentions, reduced the eight stage process to four stages. Full transparency is the only solution. An application from a local authority should be dated when it arrives at the Department and then dated on each occasion it moves from one stage to the next. It would be better if the four stage process could be time-bound. That could cause problems but it would at least be possible to identify where the problem is.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The Department and the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Coveney, have a difficulty with numbers. The Minister does not now how many people will sleep in emergency accommodation tonight nor how many new builds are under construction. There are not 10,000 social housing units in the pipeline. I have examined the figures very carefully. In my constituency, a third of the units listed do not exist, are not in pre-planning and are never going to happen. The Department and the housing managers know that to be the case. If, as I suspect, the status of a third of units in my constituency is replicated across the entire 10,000 units, that they are in the pipeline means that a civil servant put them on a piece of paper and nothing more than that. The Department needs to become more honest in regard to the figures it publishes.

In regard to the substantive query, the real issue is that there should be a single stage process. The Department is delaying the construction of social housing from 18 to 24 months. The Government was able to rush through emergency legislation to assist big developers of private housing developments of 100 units or more. It must reform the four stage process, make it one stage and take the leash off the local authorities so they can build the houses that people need.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I accept that the blame game went on for many years. It is not currently being played. In some local authorities, there was a concern as to whether funding would be available if a local authority were to pursue strongly a social housing project it was asked to develop by the Department. All Members of the House support what is being done in regard to social housing, at a minimum, and are committed that the €5.3 billion that has been allocated to it be spent.

Some Members want to spend even more and I accept that as well. I have given assurances to local authority members and managers that they can get on with this. What happened under previous Governments, when funding was stopped after local authorities were told to progress sites, is not going to happen. That is very clear. I am doing that on behalf of the Dáil. This is not the Government trying to claim credit here. Everybody in this House supports the spend on social housing and wants it to continue. It is something that we are pushing because it was delaying projects, and even delaying to the commitment to pipeline projects. The fear was that it could be cut off again. That is not happening.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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It would be great if we could get to a one-stage process. That is probably unrealistic, but equally we have to admit that there is duplication of the decision making process. I have not studied the latest report, which was issued last week, because it is not yet available in Excel format. We are still looking at it in PDF format. There were 508 projects going through the Departments. Some 32 of those were for single units that are forced to go through a four-stage process. The bureaucracy in that regard makes no sense at all. Some 49% of the total projects were for fewer than ten units. The whole programme of delivering social housing is quite small and it is not challenging. A project with 100 units has to go through the very same process as that relating to one unit. This matter must be examined.

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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If I send the Minister of State the breakdown of Mel Reynolds' analysis, will he reply to it and counteract what Mr. Reynolds says in order to justify his own numbers?

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I did not get to answer the second half of the earlier question. A single-stage process already exists. The local authorities chose not to use it. That process allows for a certain number of houses and it was agreed in the programme for Government to increase that. It is not being used. Only one application has come forward on that.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That is for small projects and tiny buildings. That is just disingenuous.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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It is not disingenuous. Deputy Casey referred to projects of ten units and 20 units. There is a single-stage process available for those projects. I have encouraged local authorities to use it. Many choose not to use it. I have asked our Department and the local authorities to consider the way that the same method is being used to deliver schools under the devolved grant scheme. That worked quite well and everybody got on board with it eventually. It was started by Noel Dempsey, and I totally accept that. People should not be afraid of the risk associated with the single stage process. All of us working for the delivery of housing know that there is a need to change the processes. That is what we are trying to do. That is why the interaction of our staff and the staff of the local authorities has increased dramatically and why on-site meetings are happening much more often. The availability is there. We have to eliminate the delays and the blame game associated with them. That should not be there any more, because there is no excuse for delay. In defence of both sides, there were not sufficient staff two or three years ago to deal with this. An extra 500 staff have been sanctioned to work on housing projects in the past year and that will help to make it faster as well.

On Deputy Wallace's question, we have no problem with an analysis of our 10,000 pipeline projects. I will get that done. They are available online and can be analysed. We are not saying that they are all under construction. They are all at different stages of the pipeline.