Ann Ormonde (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I wish to read into the record of the House the Government's achievements to date before I express my own views.

One third of Ireland's houses have been built in the past decade. House completions are at the highest level in Europe, with 20 units per 1,000 of population. This is well over five times the rate of our nearest neighbour, the United Kingdom. Huge investment in servicing land has made land available to underpin the future supply of housing.

All water services schemes provide services for housing. By the end of 2005, the serviced land initiative had provided services for more than 81,000 housing units for 164 completed schemes. An additional 95,300 housing units will be serviced for a further 59 schemes at construction. The housing land available surveys undertaken in June 2005 indicated more than 14,800 hectares of zoned serviced land available, with an estimated yield of 460,000 housing units. This equates to sufficient national capacity for five years of residential development, based on recent average housing output.

At the end of June 2005, Dublin city and county had approximately 2,800 hectares of zoned serviced land with an estimated yield of more than 145,000 housing units. There were 1,374 hectares of zoned serviced land in the mid-east region, with an estimated yield of approximately 38,000 units. There was sufficient zoned serviced land in the other major urban areas to yield about 38,000 in Cork, 15,300 units in Galway, 12,000 units in Limerick and 6,200 units in Waterford.

It is important that these figures and statistics are put on the record of the House as a means of reflecting the determination of the Government and its commitment to make the supply equal to the demand. This is the aim of the Government and the Minister of State.

I welcome the new affordable housing partnership that was set up last year to negotiate exchange or swap of State land to facilitate affordable houses. The latest example in my area of south Dublin involved the exchange of land in Harcourt Street resulting in the building of 215 homes in Lucan, Tallaght, City West, Clondalkin and Rathcoole, which is a great success story. We have had other examples resulting in the building of more than 500 units following a swap of State land, which has given us real value for money. Those success stories need to be highlighted.

We do not have a problem with policy; the Government is doing all it can. However, we need to get all the stakeholders to work together to accelerate the rate of delivery, where we may have a problem. The validation of a planning application takes too long. Organising pre-planning meetings can give rise to significant delays followed by the processing of the application. If the site planning notice that must be displayed is incorrect, the whole operation must start again. We need to consider these issues. We also have the appeals system. Problems regarding Part V of the Planning and Development Act can delay the whole planning process and could contribute to increased costs for the new householders. While officials in South Dublin County Council are very professional, I have known other local authorities that are not as professional in their processing of applications, which can be a factor in delaying delivery. We must aim to speed up delivery to allow supply equal demand.

Another area of difficulty is with ESB Networks. People can be ready to move and are delayed because they must wait for ESB Networks to come on site and connect electricity supply. It is not the fault of the Minister of State; it is a problem with all the stakeholders.

Some county managers are very good and some are not so good. I do not know how they work when a developer makes an application or in a pre-planning discussion about Part V and the requirement for 20% of the development to be given to social and affordable housing. The process at that stage can take six to 12 months to resolve because there may be disputes over the precise location of the social and affordable housing. I favour mixed communities and the village concept. I was brought up in a village where it was great to deal with everybody as opposed to having beautiful people in one cul-de-sac and the not so beautiful people elsewhere. I never wanted that in our society. Ireland is not made like that and we should not have it. We should have integrated communities. I know that is where the Minister of State's heart is. He should pursue it and ensure it works because it is key to the solution.

We are doing a great job in housing in that we are catching up to get the supply equal to the demand. Our population is increasing with many people coming to the country. Our economic growth and the availability of mortgages facilitate buying houses. While the Minister of State is making it easy, the stakeholders are pulling him back. We need to get everybody singing the same tune, which would give rapid delivery of affordable houses. It is on its way. The Minister of State is doing a great job and I wish him every success in the future.