Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I am particularly grateful to the Ceann Comhairle for affording me the opportunity to raise this matter as a Topical Issue matter today. Tá mé fíorbhuíoch dóibh go léir. It is an important issue and I am glad the Minister of State, Deputy English, is in the Chamber. He knows County Meath well.

I am very worried about the provision of social housing in County Meath. I acknowledge there are projects ongoing, but they are very small in number. My main concern, however, is that they are getting smaller in number over time. When we look towards 2021 or 2022 we are running out of land in the county for direct building by Meath County Council. We are also running out of projects that are currently in planning. As of this month, Meath County Council has 118 houses at construction stage, 47 at tender stage, 168 at design stage and 19 coming through Part 8 developments. While every one of those houses is important, these numbers are too low.

There are also similar projects being done by approved housing bodies, although these are different in that they are not done directly through the county council. Altogether, these projects account for 604 units, some of which have already been delivered because the figure covers the period from 2017 to 2021. These are located in various places and large numbers of them have been bought from private developers, which can cause its own difficulties.

I do not see any landbank owned by Meath County Council on the horizon. As far as I know, the council does not have a policy or budget for buying land. More important in the context of Dáil Éireann is that the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government does not have a policy or budget to acquire a landbank in County Meath. Where will houses be built in the county? Over the decades, our predecessors, especially those from my party, were able to build large housing projects on large tracts of land. It seems that the possibility of doing that is running out. Many of the direct build housing projects that are up and running, either under construction, going through Part 8, out for tender or in the design stage, are filling in pockets of land that Meath County Council had in its ownership over the years. I do not see beyond that where Meath County Council will be able to build and I do not see the plans for that. This will require a major Government intervention.

It is crazy that by the end of September, 101 couples without children and 23 households with children had been added to the homeless list in County Meath this year. While some of the 53 children in question were placed by homeless services in rented accommodation, that is still a frightening statistic. Every day, the Minister of State and I get emails from families who are about to suffer homelessness. A number of reasons have been given by the county council but the main problems are the issuing of notices to quit and insecure rental. Mortgages are not as much of a problem as rents. So far this year, 762 new applications for social housing support have been granted in Meath. We need much more of a vision for large-scale development in which the State can get involved. This would also have a very positive impact on the housing market. Rather than simply filling in small pockets of land in the county, where is the vision? Where are we going to build houses in future?

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Byrne for bringing forward this topic for discussion and providing us with an opportunity to consider what we have achieved in recent years through Meath County Council. I will also outline our plans for the next few years, including funding allocations.

Deputy Byrne will be aware that housing is one of the Government's top priorities. Investment in Rebuilding Ireland has been significantly increased every year. Apart from having sites and planning permissions, the Government must have the ambition to solve and prioritise this issue, which is the case. This year, we have funding of €2.4 billion for housing and the figure will increase to €2.6 billion next year. Capital spending increased by 25% this year. Money is being set aside to try to make this happen. The Deputy is right that it is important to have a pipeline of projects in place in every county, especially priority counties such as Meath, to ensure this money can be spent on projects to deliver housing. Part of my job, through the housing delivery office of my Department, is to look at the pipeline of projects that are coming through across the areas of build, acquisition, lease, housing assistance payment, HAP, and so on. We this on a weekly and monthly basis with every local authority. We have a very close working relationship with Meath County Council. As a local Deputy, I naturally engage a lot with the council on its projects. Meath County Council has been doing quite well in recent years in responding to the national drive from the Government to improve the situation around housing and put plans in place for the future.

Nationally, 27,000 households will be helped with their housing needs in 2019 and more than 10,000 new social houses will be delivered. These include more than 6,000 direct build units and leased or acquired housing. These are 10,000 taxpayer funded houses that were not available last year.

Meath County Council's share of that is approximately 1,100 and rightly so.

With regard to the social housing programme in Meath, the local authority itself is responsible in the first instance for housing delivery on the ground. I cannot tell the local authority what sites to use and the Department does not micromanage every detail. We work with the authority on the proposals it brings forward and make an envelope of money available for projects. We have made that very clear. We have worked with the local authority to set targets for 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 and Meath has reached those targets at all stages and gone beyond them. We have made it very clear that the funding is available from the Department to go beyond those targets to put a greater pipeline of projects in place. In 2018, Meath County Council delivered through all of the various mechanisms more than 1,200 new solutions, of which 436 were new social houses provided through build, acquisition and lease. That was 100 more than the target. We funded that happily. It is my job as Minister of State from the local area to ensure the funding is there. Provision through HAP, RAS and so on came to 767 homes. In total, Meath delivered 1,204 houses in 2018 and will be very close to that number in 2019 given the pipeline that is there. Since Rebuilding Ireland commenced in 2016, over 3,400 units in total have been brought forward by Meath County Council across all the schemes.

The ambition is there on the part of the local authority and on the part of the Department. The targets are being reached and I understand we have to put in place the pipeline projects for 2020 and 2021. They are there for 2019 and 2020 to match the targets but I am looking beyond that to 2021 and 2022. We support the local authority to purchase land banks and develop more sites but we have moved on from the days of bringing forward large-scale sites to put hundreds of social houses in a single area while all the private houses are built somewhere else. We try to develop sites with social and affordable housing and private housing together. The projects in the pipeline that are larger include the site in Ashbourne which was previously owned by the Department of Education and Skills and there are sites in Ratoath too. Bettystown is coming forward this year and next year and housing is being brought forward this year, hopefully, in Cortown and Oldcastle. There are also sites in Nobber, Carlanstown, Donore, Dunshaughlin and Kells. Many sites are being developed which will give us the supply we need for 2019. We have been very clear with the local authority about putting in place more projects, including on its own lands. It has a large land bank in Navan at the Farganstown site and is bringing forward proposals there. The money was sanctioned last week and a project has gone to tender for a new road to open up those lands. That land bank will be brought into use. We encourage the local authority to put together more land banks and will work with it on that.

We recognise the need for the local authority to put in place a pipeline of projects. Meath County Council has, as a rule, responded to what is required of it over the last couple of years. Naturally, the ambition is to go even further. There is a great deal of private sector development in Meath also. It is probably among the top three or four counties for private housing development and that will bring forward other options under Part V, including turn-key options. We want to encourage and continue with that too because we recognise that there is a great deal of demand in Meath to which we want to respond. I am confident the local authority is in a position to do so. It needs to do so and we will certainly work with it on a weekly basis to bring more projects forward. However, the Department cannot tell the local authority which sites in which areas it should use. We can work with the local authority on any project it brings forward. I will try to work with the authority to ensure we give it quick answers and respond as quickly as we can to any proposals it brings forward. We will continue to do that.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State has set out the targets which he says have been exceeded by Meath County Council. I am not going to be critical of the local authority which is working with limited resources. When the Minister of State refers to 1,200 being the total housing delivery for 2018, 767 of those units, or the vast majority, relate to HAP and RAS. That is not sustainable social housing. It is also a reason people are taken off the housing list. Their housing needs are deemed to be met when they go on HAP. While HAP, which is the old rent allowance in a new guise, is important, it is not the answer and it does not provide the stability people need. That is the problem. People need stability and are entitled to it.

I can see the arguments behind why the Minister of State says we are not going back to building hundreds of social housing units in the one place. They are obvious. However, it is not an excuse for having ten here, 20 there or even the two largest projects planned for Meath of 55 units in Ashbourne and 42 in Navan. Farganstown is listed on the current design plans. While the social housing in various rural areas is welcome and there is demand for it and while it has to go through proper planning and so on, it is a drop in the ocean compared to what is required. It is important that whatever social housing is provided is on bus routes, in established communities and suitable for people to live in. We do not want people moving to areas they do not know with no public transport, which is something I have seen happen over the years.

The ambition has to be much greater. While we can see houses going up and houses being bought, I do not see that greater vision into the future. I see a great deal of plugging of holes in terms of filling in sites the local authority already has ownership of and I see that running out. I see a greater reliance on HAP than is there even already and a greater reliance on the purchase of houses in the private market which has the other effect on the housing market of increasing the price for everyone else. If the local authority was building its own houses, it would actually reduce the price for everyone else as there would be more houses there. We have it the wrong way around and are entitled to see a better vision for social housing.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Byrne should look at his own party's proposals. No party in opposition has greater ambition in relation to social housing than we do in government. We have set out a ten-year plan which brings Rebuilding Ireland forward with a commitment to deliver up to 1,200 social houses a year. I do not see anyone else here with that ambition. The ambition is there at national level and it is backed up by the money allocated to make it happen. The Deputy is right that we need every local authority to match that ambition by bringing forward plans and a pipeline of projects. As a Minister of State in the Department, I sit down with local authorities and officials on a weekly and monthly basis to see where they are going with this and what are their ambitions. In some cases, it is 50 units, 60 units, 70 units or 90 units and it can go over 100 units. However, bringing forward a massive site just for social housing will not happen. The site in Navan is 28 acres and its initial phase involves fewer than 100 social houses. However, a great many more can go on that at the right and appropriate time as determined by Meath County Council.

As I said to Deputy Byrne's colleagues, we will match the ambition of Meath County Council. The funding will be put in place to fund the housing projects it brings forward. Whether it is ten large sites or 40 small sites is a decision for Meath County Council to bring forward through Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael county councillors working together. Meath has responded to the initial targets set and is on track to meet them by delivering over 1,056 permanent new build homes itself. In the short term, it uses the HAP scheme to meet people's needs today and tomorrow and it does so very well. Deputy Byrne mentioned homeless families. The majority of people who become homeless in Meath do so for a very temporary period. The local authority responds quickly using all of our schemes to find those people houses and rightly so. That is what we expect it to do.

I understand what the Deputy is saying. He wants to see what is happening in 2020 and 2021 and I share his wish. We want to work with the local authority to fund plans for the future. We are up for it in our Department and the money is ring-fenced to match that ambition. Meath County Council has brought its housing waiting list down by 20% every year for the last two or three years and is well capable of doing this. We need to continue that positive trend, build on it and bring forward many more projects while also dealing with vacant units. An example in Kells is the €10 million which has been set aside for a street of vacant houses. Meath County Council is beginning to take on a great many initiatives and it can do more with our funding.