Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Acting Chairman might remind me when one minute remains. I can get carried away.

I thank the Minister for attending and commend him on this plan. He has shown leadership in this regard. I will point out a couple of elements that should be included, but it has a number of very good aspects that, if implemented properly, will work as required.

We are mindful of the ever-changing situation, in that 160 people were made homeless in the past month. If the situation remains the same, 12,000 families will be made homeless during the plan's lifetime. We must bear this in mind. I raise this point because I was in the Castlebar court a couple of weeks ago to witness repossessions that made families homeless. This issue needs to be tackled in a way whereby we can intervene with the banks. On behalf of one family with two children, a bank was offered €50,000 to settle the €66,000 owed to it, yet the bank refused. We need a mechanism whereby banks can be made to take responsibility. After all, the €64 billion that we gave them would have gone a long way towards building people new houses.

A number of people have been, and others will be, made homeless because of the pyrite issue affecting Mayo and Donegal. I welcome the fact that the Minister will visit Mayo and has been to Donegal to see the situation at first hand. I visited a house last week to see the renovations that were required because of pyrite. I would not call them "renovations", as all that was left of the house were the foundations and the roof. Everything else needed to be rebuilt from scratch. Given that such houses are continuing to deteriorate, hundreds more families will be made homeless because of pyrite. A relief scheme similar to the one provided in the east must be made available to prevent these people from being made homeless.

I come from a local authority background, namely, Mayo County Council. As Senator Boyhan pointed out, local authorities have statutory responsibility for providing houses, but they need resources if they are to work this plan in a timely manner. Consider the length of time it takes to get from the planning stage to houses being built, even in small developments. For example, just six houses are to be built in the Glenamoy housing scheme, but because the local authority does not have the expertise or adequate personnel, the process is taking too long. The Government can claim that the money is being made available, but the money is not doing what needs to be done because local authorities do not have the requisite resources.

The impediments and extra costs encountered during the planning process by people who want to build their own houses make no sense. Planners telling people that they can build at this end of a field but not at the other puts building a house beyond affordability.

How long should it take a local authority to build a house once it has planning permission? Is there an average time and has the Minister agreed targets with local authorities on how many houses will be built in the next six months?I am pleased that the plan has flexibility for local authorities to purchase houses. There is provision to give grant aid to people who need to refurbish their houses or bring them up to a standard where they can be bought or rented by the local authority.