James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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6. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the steps he has taken to address the housing crisis in County Wexford; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45233/17]

Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The question is self-explanatory. Like many others, Deputy Browne is concerned about the housing crisis in County Wexford. There are statistics emanating from Wexford which suggest it has the third highest number of 18 to 24 year olds in receipt of rent supplement. House prices and rents there are soaring. Deputy Browne tabled this question in the hope that the Minister might outline some hope for the future in terms of his Department's deliberations with Wexford's local authorities.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Like many other counties around the country, Wexford has experienced a low level of construction activity, both public and private, over the last number of years. I spoke earlier about the shortage of money in the private and public sectors. Now that money is becoming available, we are trying to prioritise it for housing. A budget of €6 billion has been secured to fund housing projects, in the main, social housing, but also to open up sites for housing in general. The €1.9 billion budget for housing and homelessness is the largest we have ever seen. We recognise there is a crisis and we are trying to correct it. Like very other county, Wexford needs to gain from that and that is what we are trying to do.

The latest status report for social housing construction projects, which was published last month, contains key information on current social housing construction activity by Wexford County Council and the approved housing bodies with which it is working. It shows that 75 homes have been delivered since last year and approximately 320 additional homes are at planning, design, tender or construction stage.

Local authorities have been undertaking targeted acquisitions with a particular focus on vacant properties in order to avoid increasing pressure and competition in local property markets. Since the start of 2016, almost €17 million has been provided to Wexford County Council for that purpose. Funding of over €778,000 was provided in the period from 2014 to 2016 to return around 61 vacant social houses back into full use and a further 37 were targeted this year, although not all have been completed. Over 450 households in Wexford have been supported under the housing assistance payment scheme. It is a temporary solution but it is important that we find a home for people while we increase the supply of housing across the board, which is what we are trying to do.

Wexford County Council is in the process of finalising and submitting strategic development plans for its landbank. I look forward to its proposals for further projects to be added to its construction programme and my Department will consider them without delay when they are received. We are asking local authorities to bring forward more projects on State-owned lands through turn-key or other necessary approaches. Such plans have been submitted by many local authorities and are currently being analysed.

Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The figures provided by the Minister of State on what is happening or under construction in Wexford are that 75 homes have been delivered in two years and 375 houses are at the planning and design stage and will be coming on stream in the near future. There is another issue that has not necessarily been dealt with in spite of the best intentions of all concerned and Deputy Ó Broin and many others will be aware of it as it was discussed at the special committee when the Dáil was formed last year, which tried to make recommendations to ensure Rebuilding Ireland would be the sort of document we hoped would address this issue. The Minister of State and the Minister refer to 10,000 units being in the construction pipeline but only 24% of those are currently on site and, therefore, most will not be built until 2021. That has to be considered in the context of what many Members would say is the unambitious target of 26,000 units by then. The stages for approval have decreased from eight to four but it still takes two years to go from a site being declared initially to units being built. What has the Government done and what will it do to ensure the procurement process is improved? That delay is one of the greatest frustrations in this area. The Minister of State replied to a question on this topic from Deputy Mattie McGrath in respect of County Tipperary. There are similar situations in my own constituency. The first application for 30 units in Tullamore went to the Department three years ago but nobody is on-site yet. The Minister of State said money is not a problem. It is not a problem if one has to wait three years for approval but it is a problem if one is to get approval in six months. I ask the Minister of State to give some indication that progress is being made and that will continue.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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No Member thinks the figures for recent years are anything to cheer about. The trend has improved and the figures are going in the right direction. Only 75 houses were delivered two years ago by local authorities throughout the country. That is not something anyone would cheer about. That figure was increased to more than 600 last year and this year more than 2,000 new houses will be built on site, as well as voids being brought back and the acquisition of new houses. Next year that figure will be 3,800 and it will increase thereafter. In terms of the pipeline of projects, we are not saying all 11,000 projects on 700 sites will be there in three or four months' time. Lots of projects that were not there a year ago are now moving in the right direction. We want to increase the number of projects in the pipeline because it will currently only deliver 11,000 houses but there is a commitment under Rebuilding Ireland to build more than 36,000 houses and we want that to happen. However, the pipeline has to be put in place because projects will not fall out of the sky.

Deputy Cowen is correct that the procedures in place to deliver houses were far too slow. That is why we made changes to the delivery model and changed from an eight-stage to a four-stage model. There is a one-stage option but local authorities do not want to use it. We have focussed on this issue in recent months and changes will be made in the coming months. There have been meetings to get agreement from all involved and the changes will improve timelines dramatically. A new delivery team to drive more urgency has been put in place, as announced after the housing summit by the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy. All Members agree these sites should be developed more quickly. The sites are being visited to determine what can be done to fast-track them, what the barriers are and what is wrong. Procedural delays are part of the problem and we will correct that as quickly as we can. Those changes will be made in the coming weeks.

Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State said the Government is trying to correct these issues and improve delivery. I thought it had been trying to do that for the past number of years but, unfortunately, it has had no success in that regard. While the Minister of State says there are 11,000 projects in the pipeline and it is great to have so many, only 24% of them are on site and, therefore, a maximum of 2,300 of those houses will be delivered next year and the majority will not be completed until 2021 if the current rate of progress from pipeline to construction to keys continues. Unless the Government changes that trend, it will not meet the targets it has set for next year in spite of the allocation having been improved in the hope targets can be met. I hope I am wrong. I, and others around the country, should not have to raise the issue of a site in Tullamore that was identified three years ago but does not yet have any diggers on it. It has been announced before three elections now, or two at least-----

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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One of them must have been Deputy Cowen's.

Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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Unfortunately, the houses have still not been built.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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We all want those houses to be delivered more quickly. We have made improvements in that regard which have had an impact. There has not been enough of an impact and we are going to go even further. However, we have gone from 75 houses being built two years ago to over 2,000 this year and 3,800 will be delivered next year. There is no doubt about that. The rapid construction was not initially as rapid as all Members wanted but projects are now getting to site more quickly and more houses are being built. That is evident and it can deliver a lot more. We are confident that the changes we have made and further changes we will make to the delivery model and driving urgency will deliver these houses. However, we are not stopping at that and we want more. We have told every local authority to bring forward more proposals and plans and we will work through them. We are speeding up timelines because the process currently takes too long. Nobody is denying that. We have changed it and are going to change it again to drive the process even more quickly because it is not delivering as many houses as we need.