Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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10. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [19983/23]

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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11. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [21382/23]

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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12. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [21443/23]

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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13. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [21444/23]

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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14. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [21445/23]

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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15. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [21480/23]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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16. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [21530/23]

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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17. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [21533/23]

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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18. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [21536/23]

Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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19. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will next meet. [21668/23]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 10 to 19, inclusive, together.

The Cabinet committee on housing last met on 17 April. The next meeting will be held in June. The committee works to ensure a co-ordinated approach to the implementation of Housing for All. The plan is working. In the first quarter alone, more than 6,700 new homes were built, almost 20% more than the same quarter last year, carrying on the momentum of approximately 30,000 homes being built in 2022. That number does not include student accommodation or derelict homes brought back into use. Building started on more than 7,000 new homes in the first quarter of this year. Many more than 10,000 new mortgages were drawn down in the first quarter, with first-time buyers accounting for slightly more than half of these mortgages, making home ownership a reality again for thousands of people. This means more than 400 people are buying their first home every week, which is the highest since the Celtic tiger period.

There is also a strong pipeline of social and affordable housing, with almost 20,000 social homes at various stages of construction and more than 2,700 more affordable homes already approved for funding. We continue to see progress, including the growing take-up of the first homes scheme; the Land Development Agency receiving planning permission for more than 1,000 new homes; additional staff and board members for An Bord Pleanála to try to reduce the backlogs; and a further €41 million being provided in capital funding for student accommodation provided by third level institutions. We are progressing fundamental reforms in land management and planning and promoting innovation in construction.

We know we need to do more, which is why on 25 April we announced further actions under Housing for All to respond to the challenges in the external environment, such as rising costs of construction and financing. The package includes a commitment of up to €750 million via the Land Development Agency and other providers to complete 4,000 to 6,000 additional affordable homes to be available under the cost-rental system. We are reducing the cost of construction by suspending the development levies required to connect new homes to public infrastructure, such as water and other services, which we estimate will reduce building costs by approximately €12,000 per unit.

While these measures will bring forward newly built homes, we also recognise that often the most efficient way to deliver is to renovate buildings that already exist. For this reason, we increased the vacant property refurbishment grant from €30,000 to €50,000 for vacant properties and from €50,000 to €70,000 for derelict properties. It is now possible to get this grant for homes built prior to the end of 2007. Those grants are available to people who will live in these refurbished homes and to those who will rent them out. These measures and others in Housing for All are the most effective way to accelerate housing supply. Without additional supply, we will not be able to resolve this crisis.

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome many of the programmes the Taoiseach mentioned, especially the Croí Cónaithe scheme,. The latter will be beneficial going forward. One of the biggest barriers we are still experiencing in County Cork is the provision of wastewater treatment plants when it comes to servicing new housing estates in smaller villages outside the city boundary such as Carraig na bhFear, where we are happy to be opening a new school shortly. There is a large brownfield site in the middle of the village that cannot be serviced. Houses cannot be built there and brought into stock. There is currently a development of 100 homes in Whitechurch but the second phase of a further 50 homes cannot commence because of wastewater restrictions. A development in Ballyvolane was held up for three years. That development will deliver 2,500 to 3,000 units in time but the process relating to it took three years. Will any additional investment be going into wastewater infrastructure? The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, made an announcement last year about upgrading many wastewater treatment plants.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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Since the Government took office, rents, house prices and the number of people who are homeless and living in emergency homeless accommodation - almost 12,000 people - have reached record levels. At the same time, almost €1 billion that was allocated to be spent on housing has not been used for the purpose of building social and affordable homes. This year, spending on housing is running 32.5% behind where it is meant to be. When we raised this last year we were told not to worry and that the Government would catch up by the end of the year, but that did not happen. The Government did not catch up. Hundred of millions of euro that should have been spent building social and affordable homes was not spent. Instead, some of these moneys are being handed over to developers who are exempt from paying development levies. What is the Taoiseach doing to ensure that money that has been allocated to be spent on building social and affordable homes will actually be spent for that purpose?

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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I echo the point the Taoiseach made with respect to the progress we have made. It is worth noting that since the Government came into office, we have built more homes for more people, increased eligibility, built more public homes than ever before and we have a higher total output than has been the case for many years. However, I will flag two matters that the Cabinet sub-committee should examine. The first relates to the approved housing body, AHB, sector, which is producing in volume. We must be careful of the borrowing requirements of AHBs in order to ensure that they can maximise output. The Department has compiled a report. I ask that the Cabinet sub-committee consider the full implications of that report with respect to the AHB balance sheet and the restrictions on it. That needs to be examined.

My second point relates to the tenant in situscheme and the cost-rental backstop. I have been approached by people who have received the devastating news of eviction notices. Within a matter of weeks, the tenant in situscheme has transformed their housing situation. Regardless of where they are placed on the list, they are able to secure a home forever, which is the home they want. Dublin City Council has confirmed that small numbers of people are also being considered for the cost-rental backstop. We can go further with that scheme. We should be purchasing homes for people who are waiting for a significant period on the waiting list, even if they are not facing immediate eviction.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Like previous speakers, I deal with housing queries on a daily basis. Lately, there seems to be a huge issue with communication between the Department and local authorities. On issues like this, we must ensure that we are all on the same wavelength. I recently encountered a lady who had to go into emergency accommodation because the ban on evictions was lifted. Her child is autistic and has to be picked up from a homeless shelter and brought to school on a bus. There is not enough leniency for me to be able to fight this particular case. In fairness to Carlow County Council, it is understaffed. I am aware it needs many more staff. They are needed in the housing department. However, the Department needs to provide more guidelines. Extreme cases like this that need to be looked at as a matter of urgency must be given priority. I have spoken to the Minister about this matter, as the Taoiseach would expect, but we must have more communication, and I will ask for it.

Transfers have become a huge issue for me, and I have spoken to many other Deputies about them. I have been contacted by a lot of genuine people who need transfers but they are only getting them on medical grounds. While that is welcome, I also know there are genuine cases where people need to be transferred and are not getting a transfer. I can say hand on heart that when people owe money to a local authority, they are told straight away they have to put a payment plan in place. I understand that. I know good work is being done and I can only compliment Carlow County Council but I ask that there be more communication between the Department and local authorities.

Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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I want to raise another problem with the tenant in situscheme that has come to my attention, along with the difficulties with a lack of capacity in local authorities. Owing to the chronic shortages in housing in Dublin, including in my constituency of Dublin Bay South, many people are in house-shares with different types of tenure and lone parents, older people and a mix of full private rent and housing assistance payment, HAP, tenants are often living in one house. When a landlord goes to sell, however, all of them clearly get eviction notices. They are all subject to the same treatment in eviction but if one of the tenants is on HAP, our understanding is that he or she is not eligible for a tenant in situscheme if the others in the house-share are private tenants. We understand they are also excluded from cost-rental tenant in situschemes. This is a serious issue for many people involved in these shared tenancies, which are becoming increasingly common, as we know, given the chronic housing shortage. Will the Taoiseach ensure that the cost-rental scheme will cover all of those in shared tenancies, whatever their status? Otherwise we will see an even greater increase in homelessness than we had sadly anticipated might occur with the lifting of the eviction ban.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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In the Dublin Rathdown constituency, which is not even my constituency, a family with working parents - one works in a bakery and his wife works in an insurance company - and two children have been evicted. They are HAP tenants, they have a court order against them and the sheriff is due around. The house is owned by receivers, Ernst & Young, which want to sell it. I contacted the receivers and asked if they would sell to the council. They said they thought they would get a better price on the market and they wanted the sale to be quick and therefore they would not sell to the council. I then contacted the Minister and the council and asked them to get on to the receivers and tell them they would pay the market price and that they are serious about trying to buy the property. That has been done but we do not know what will happen because it is entirely in the hands of the receivers. We need to supplement this with a first refusal option for councils in cases where people are threatened with eviction in order that a council has some power to ensure families are not evicted where it is willing to buy the property to prevent families being evicted.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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I want to raise an issue of planning, which I presume is dealt with by the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The issue is the use or abuse of section 254 licences to erect phone masts without having any process of public notice, consultation or whatever. Hundreds of masts have been put up in this way by Cignal, which recently changed its name to Cellnex. People are not opposed to masts and we need to have them as part of public infrastructure but they want to have a say in where they go, how they look and so on. A new issue has arisen recently in my estate whereby a mast is being put up under this section. There is an ongoing appeal to An Bord Pleanála yet the mast is still being put up. This was raised as a Topical Issue last night by a number of Deputies. The Minister of State was not clear as to whether the law states that the company has to stop while the appeal is ongoing, as is the case for everything else in planning, or if it can proceed as the company claims it can.

Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity)
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I want to talk to the Taoiseach about mortgage prisoners. There are more than 30,000 households in this State that have not only had their mortgages snapped up by vulture funds but that have been told they cannot go on fixed-rate mortgages. Many of them are paying interest rates of 8% or 9%. That is on the Government because the State imposes maximum rates on moneylenders but not on the loan sharks that are the vulture funds. Yesterday, Tullamore Circuit Court disregarded appeals from a vulture, or its representatives, and approved a personal solvency assessment that imposed a fixed rate of 2.5% over 25 years. No doubt thousands of people will be contacting personal insolvency practitioners about escaping the prison and taking cases. Rather than forcing these people to go down this route, which takes time and expense, the Government should short-circuit the situation, intervene and force the vultures to offer fixed rates and, more important, to cap those charges.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I ask Deputy Ó Murchú to be brief or the Taoiseach will not have time to respond.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Yesterday, I brought up the issue of housing adaptation grants for older and disabled people and I need the Taoiseach to revert to me on that.

Carlinn Hall is a large housing estate in Dundalk with a communal heating system that is gas-fed having previously been biomass-fed. A feasibility study was carried out on the use of geothermal heating. I ask that the results of that study be expedited. Deputy Bacik also spoke about the report on district heating systems. We need to ensure this problem does not recur. We need to make the switch to geothermal as quickly as possible to facilitate those residents who are living with huge costs.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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The Taoiseach has 12 seconds to respond.

Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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The Acting Chairman should extend the time.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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We regularly do that. The Cathaoirleach often gives the Taoiseach an extra five minutes.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I invite the Taoiseach to respond briefly.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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We all have places to be but I will be happy to answer if we can take the additional time off the next group of questions.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It is normal practice.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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The Deputies who asked the questions in the next group might agree to disagree.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I met Uisce Éireann a few months ago and it has a work programme. Understandably, it prioritises wastewater investments that will result in the greatest return in new homes, new housing estates and developments and new industry. I am aware, and I hear this from my Deputies and councillors all over the country, that a number of small towns and villages around the country are constrained and cannot have any natural growth or even build a small number of houses because of the need to invest more in wastewater. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has a scheme that is targeted at the small towns and villages. In the run-up to the revised national development plan ceilings we can see if it is possible to increase the budget for Irish Water. I would be in favour of doing that but there are capacity constraints. We would want to increase the budget by enough that we get more and do not just drive up the cost of things, which is always a risk when we are hitting capacity constraints across the economy.

Any time we talk about underspends in the housing budget it is disingenuous not to acknowledge that it is the biggest housing budget ever, certainly in cash terms, amounting to €4.5 billion per year. That is the context to any underspend. There was a massive increase in the housing budget and that is the context under which underspends occur. What are we doing to try to avoid a repeat of that this year? We are reallocating funding earlier in the year. We are trying to figure out earlier in the year if projects are slow or stalled and then reallocating it to projects that can be sped up, which is what we want to do.

On the comments made by Deputies, we should acknowledge that house prices are, at long last, falling in Ireland. They have been falling for several months and probably peaked last year. They peaked at the same level they peaked at roughly 14 years ago, which is still too high, but it is encouraging to see house prices coming down in this city and across the country.

Deputy McAuliffe asked about the tenant in situscheme and spoke about going further. I would be sympathetic to his sentiments in that regard. We have told local authorities there is a budget in place to buy 1,500 homes where the landlord is selling up. If they can meet that budget, we are well disposed to increasing the figure and allowing them to buy more. We should not be too hung up on where somebody is on the housing list. If a property can be bought by a council or an AHB and that person can be given a more secure and long-term tenancy, that is a good thing and we should not get hung up on where they are on the housing list. We also should not lose sight of the fact that when landlords are selling up, the person they often sell to is a first-time buyer or a family trading up, which can be a good thing too. The underlying problem is just an inadequate amount of housing. Until we clear that deficit of about 250,000 missing homes, we will continue to have these problems.

Deputies raised some of the issues with the tenant in situscheme. I will endeavour to examine them with the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. I know that complications and anomalies arise where there are multiple tenants, and we have not really figured out the right way to deal with that. We are aware of it and will see if we can come up with solutions. The same thing, I think, arises on Deputy Boyd Barrett's question about the possibility of a first refusal for councils or AHBs. Another option is capital gains tax exemption. That might make it more attractive to sell to the council or the AHB.

I do not know the answers to the questions about the masts or Carlinn Hall but I will check out those matters and come back to the Deputies.

Finally, in response to Deputy Barry, I am aware of the court decision in Tullamore. It is potentially significant but could be appealed as well. We will see what happens if it is, but I know that the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, is particularly concerned about people who have very high mortgage rates with non-bank lenders. He is looking at options as to how we can help and be more proactive in how the State can help.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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To be fair, as Members have raised the matter, the Standing Order under which we are operating, Standing Order 47, does not allow for questions or groups of questions to exceed 15 minutes.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It is done regularly, though.