Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make it clear that housing is a priority for this Government. It is one of the most challenging issues facing society at the moment but it cannot be resolved overnight. We have inherited a position where we have come through the worst economic crash that this country has ever experienced. The whole construction sector has been devastated and wiped out. When one brings all those elements together, as the Senator has said, we have a perfect storm. There is light at the end of the tunnel and there is good solid work being done to address the housing shortage. There is no one solution to this and a multifaceted approach is required.

Construction-related projects take time as they must come through concept, design and planning before the construction phase. It is not correct for the Senator to say that no local authorities are engaged in house building. This Government, for the first time in a generation, is allocating more than €1.5 billion of public funds over this year and the coming two to directly build social housing in local authorities. If Sinn Féin was in power in the morning, I can assure the Senator that no more would be done than what this Government is doing. We have already given the green light to and approved prioritised projects in local authorities nationwide many of which are already going through Part 8 in the planning process and we will see tenders and contracts going out for those projects.

I agree with the point that housing is not being delivered soon enough but what do we do in the meantime? The number of vacant houses owned by local authorities is unacceptably high. The Government has prioritised the voids - the vacant housing units in stock carried by local authorities - and additional funding is provided to local authorities to bring these houses back into use. More than 2,000 of the units were brought back in 2014 and we expect an additional 1,000 vacant units to be brought back in 2015.

The Government feels that approved housing bodies also have an important role to play in meeting the housing challenge. They have experience and track records and they can raise funds off balance sheet in order to access and leverage new funds into the housing area.

There is no single solution to this but I assure the Senator that it remains a priority. It is correct to say that many of our social tenants are in rent support because we have not built houses for many years. Rent supplement was supposed to be a short-term measure but has become a long-term one. The Rental Accommodation Scheme, RAS, and the Housing Assistance Payment, HAP, were introduced so people could transfer from the rent supplement scheme to a more appropriate, sustainable scheme such as the HAP, managed by a local authority. The HAP is working well but we need to see it ramped up substantially.

I am happy to debate the housing issue and to continually evaluate it. We need to challenge ourselves in how we will deliver for citizens on housing lists but there is no magic bullet solution. If there was it would be used. Finance is now being put in place to deliver but it is not just a matter of finance. It is also about bringing the construction sector back to sustainable levels of activity. This Bill will enable the unlocking of sites that already have services on them which will then get the construction sector back, in order for housing output to rise.

I oppose amendment No. 22. We are reducing the Part V obligation from 20% to 10% in order to address the economic viability of projects. If projects are not viable then there will be no construction on these sites. One might have the greatest of aspirations for the sites but unless they are viable and builders and developers can bring them forward, then construction will not happen. I have often said that 20% of zero is zero and that is what we have delivered over recent years from Part V so we are reducing the obligation to 10% to address economic viability. To support that approach we are also making it more robust and strict by not allowing the cash in lieu. That policy was a mistake in the past as it allowed developers to buy out their obligation to social housing. We are now insisting that the housing units are provided.

The Part V leasing element is a built-in flexibility mechanism where, if the capital funding is not available, the local authorities can continue to take out long-term leases to deliver sustainable housing over periods of ten to 20 years and which can be renewed for housing applicants. To remove the leasing aspect would cut off another vital source of housing which is something we would not want to do at this time. These are the reasons I oppose amendment No. 22.