Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to have this opportunity to update the House on the second quarterly progress report on the Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness. The report we are discussing was published on 7 February last. The Rebuilding Ireland document is over six months old at this stage, having been published in late July 2016. We received valuable input from Oireachtas colleagues during the development of the action plan and the fleshing out of the legislative and policy provisions arising from its commitments. The Joint Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government in particular has dedicated much of its time and focus to housing and planning matters. This House has debated these issues at length including, for example, before Christmas in the context of the Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Bill 2016.

The cross-party collaboration and support for addressing this most challenging issue demonstrates the collective desire to deliver on the core objectives of Rebuilding Ireland and secure real outcomes in areas like increased supply, enhanced supports and more innovative approaches. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, and I appreciate the assistance and efforts of Members of the Oireachtas and members of local authorities. The Minister and I are in the process of visiting all the local authorities. I think this is the main priority for all parties and individuals across the board. Directly elected councillors, Deputies and Senators are trying to focus on housing and to address this overall problem. I will briefly outline on a pillar-by-pillar basis the key elements of the progress that was made during the final quarter of 2016.

The overriding objectives for the Government under Pillar 1, which deals with addressing homelessness, are to stem the flow of people into homelessness, to ensure sufficient quality emergency accommodation is available and to work to secure long-term sustainable homes for families and individuals experiencing homelessness. The new national mortgage arrears resolution service, Abhaile, and the associated scheme of aid and advice for borrowers in mortgage arrears were launched by the Tánaiste, Deputy Fitzgerald, and the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Varadkar, in the autumn to assist those at risk of homelessness through mortgage arrears. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, announced significant changes to the mortgage to rent scheme that are designed to lead to a major increase in the number of households benefitting from the scheme. The changes will make the scheme quicker, more transparent, easier to navigate for borrowers and, ultimately, more accessible to more households in mortgage distress.

During the last quarter of 2016, significant emphasis was placed on delivering additional emergency accommodation for homeless people who sleep rough. Over 200 additional beds were provided across a number of facilities in Dublin. Enhanced targeted supports were made available in response to the specific needs of people in emergency accommodation, particularly families. Some 2,700 sustainable exits from homelessness were achieved nationally during 2016. This represented an increase of 16% on the 2015 figure. A significant contributor to this, and to preventing individuals and families from entering homelessness in the first place, was the housing assistance payment homeless pilot scheme in Dublin. Under this scheme, 810 stable housing tenancies were put in place in 2016, exceeding the target by nearly 50%. Homelessness, particularly the number of homeless families and children in emergency accommodation, remains a significant challenge to be addressed. The increased funding provided for homeless services this year, and the range of homelessness measures to be delivered under Rebuilding Ireland, will ensure that securing further substantial progress in this area remains a top priority in 2017.

The key focus under Pillar 2, which deals with accelerating social housing, is on the delivery of an additional 47,000 social homes by local authorities and approved housing bodies through construction, refurbishment, acquisition and leasing. The national roll-out of the housing assistance payment scheme will see it providing an important social housing solution for significant numbers of households, including those currently in receipt of long-term rent supplement. The second quarterly report, which provides details of the social housing output in 2016, shows that almost 18,400 social housing supports were provided from a full housing budget spend of €935 million. This exceeded our ambitious target of providing 17,240 such supports. Nearly 5,300 homes were built, refurbished or acquired, approximately 12,000 housing assistance payment tenancies were facilitated and over 1,000 rental accommodation scheme placements were made. We are seeing real progress in the social housing construction programme. A full schedule of the pipeline of social housing projects, accompanied by a report setting out the position at the end of 2016, was published by the Department last month. It showed that 504 projects, involving the construction of over 8,400 units, were at various stages in the process at that time.This report will be updated on a quarterly basis in tandem with future quarterly progress reports under Rebuilding Ireland. This will enable all Members of the Oireachtas and members of local authorities to track the progress of social housing projects in various counties and to keep the pressure on at both a national and local level. We are endeavouring to ensure that we all play our part in terms of increasing activity levels across all sectors.

In terms of the approval process for social housing construction projects, the main objective within the Department is to get good projects that represent value for money and deliver quality homes approved and built as quickly as possible. We are building on the efficiencies gained from previous worthwhile reforms to the approval process in which my party colleague, Senator Paudie Coffey, played a major role, and adding to them. In that context, the Department has recently published a report setting out a number of additional steps that will further streamline and enhance the approval process. A timeline for the implementation of these additional actions has also been set out and the Department is actively engaging with the local government sector on this issue.

Accelerating social housing under Pillar 2 is also crucial to delivering some of the key objectives in addressing homelessness under Pillar 1. Following the establishment of the rapid build procurement framework by the Office of Government Procurement, OGP, the Department has brought together all of the local authorities and the main approved housing bodies for a workshop on how the framework can help them in accelerating delivery. The Housing Agency has been active in utilising its €70 million rolling fund to purchase vacant properties from banks and investment companies, signing contracts for 238 houses and apartments, with the sale of 82 of these now closed. Bids have been made on a further 98 properties. In addition, the transfer of the acquired units to the approved housing bodies is being progressed which is crucial in terms of replenishing the revolving fund, thereby facilitating further purchases.

The roll-out of the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme to additional local authorities continued during quarter 4, with the scheme being activated successfully in nine additional local authority areas. Subsequently, in the current quarter, the nationwide roll-out of HAP has been completed, with its introduction last week to the administrative areas of Dublin City Council, Fingal County Council and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. A full update on this will be included in the next quarterly report. Eligible households in all 31 local authority areas can now avail of the scheme, with €153 million being made available for its operation in 2017. Progress to date this year under the scheme indicates that it is well on track to achieve its 15,000 household target for the year.

Pillar 3 is focused on accelerating the delivery of housing in the wider housing market and provides for a suite of actions dealing with funding and financing infrastructural provision, active land management, planning reforms and construction and design innovation. A key area of work over the last few months has been the assessment of the more than 70 proposals submitted under the local infrastructure housing activation fund which is now almost complete. I expect that this will allow an announcement to be made by the end of this month on the successful infrastructural projects which will open up land capable of delivering many thousands of new homes.

In terms of State land management, the survey of State lands with housing development potential, focusing on Dublin and the main cities and urban areas, is progressing well. The first phase of the mapping will be completed and published online in the coming weeks. This phase will also include mapped details of residential land zonings across the country, as well as local authority owned lands available for housing. We will be adding further layers of land mapping information to the system over the course of the second quarter. As with many policy issues, information is key and this integration of different databases will enable us to assess and prioritise the release of centrally and strategically located lands that can deliver housing quickly.

As committed to under Rebuilding Ireland, we have developed a monthly housing activity report, the second edition of which was published last week. Planning permission was granted for a total of over 16,300 new homes in 2016, an increase of 26% on 2015. Commencement notices for 13,334 new homes were submitted in the 12-month period to the end of January 2017, which is an increase of over 44%, year-on-year. Completions for the 12-month period to end of January 2017 reached 15,256 homes, a year-on-year increase of 18%. At a broad level, the indicators confirm that housing construction activity is continuing to strengthen. Having regard to wider economic growth projections and the increasing levels of planning permissions and commencements, in particular, there is a growing level of optimism that higher levels of output will be achieved in 2017 and beyond.

Under Pillar 4, which deals primarily with the rental sector, the key action during the period covered by the quarter 4 implementation report was the publication of the strategy for the rental sector in December 2016. Among the main measures arising from the strategy was the introduction of rent pressure zones, initially in the four Dublin local authority areas and Cork city, with a further 12 areas designated subsequently, on foot of a more granular analysis of rents data.This means that rent increases are capped at 4% per annum for approximately 55% of tenancies nationally. Other legislative provisions that were introduced addressed issues of security of tenure and standards, and they were well debated in this House.

While building new homes is a key element of Rebuilding Ireland, we also have too many empty homes and buildings across the country that must be brought back into use. Preliminary results from the census in 2016 indicate there are just under 200,000 vacant dwellings nationwide, representing between 9% and 10% of the overall national housing stock. Under Pillar 5, tackling vacant dwellings will be the subject of a specific vacant housing re-use strategy which is being prepared at present by the Housing Agency, working with the Department and other stakeholders. Hopefully, that will be published in the second quarter of this year.

In the meantime, we have put in place a variety of schemes aimed at getting thousands of empty homes back into use. The repair and leasing scheme was launched with funding of €140 million over five years to allow local authorities and approved housing bodies to bring up to 3,500 vacant private houses into social housing use by 2021. An additional €26 million is being provided to fund the accelerated national roll-out of the scheme in 2017, which brings the total amount of investment available this year to €32 million. The pilot scheme in Carlow and Waterford was quite successful and I believe that scheme has great potential to reactivate houses that have been lying empty for over a year. This additional funding will mean that 800 vacant properties can be brought back into use as new homes for families on local authority waiting lists. A buy and renew scheme is also being introduced, with €25 million in funding for 2017, which will enable local authorities and approved housing bodies to purchase and remediate private housing units for social housing use. This is expected to enable 150 units to be secured for social housing purposes in 2017.

I have given a brief summary overview of progress under each of the pillars, with a particular focus on the fourth quarter of 2016, which is the period covered by the second progress report. Clearly, the two progress reports published to date and the other information we have published show that solid early progress on implementation was made during the first six months of the lifetime of the action plan. I am well aware that there is further significant work to be done in accordance with the timelines set out in Rebuilding Ireland and the Minister, Deputy Coveney, the Department and I remain fully focused on that, as are the local authorities. The next update, which will set out progress made on the actions for the first quarter of 2017, will provide an update on the position relating to the delayed actions from the fourth quarter of last year and will look forward to the main issues for delivery in the second quarter of this year. It will be published in late April or early May.

I accept that it will take time for the action plan to be implemented and to prove a success. What we are examining here are the trends and data which show that activity has increased. The result of that will be people in homes and we will be judged on that. I accept that Senators will wish to raise many issues because it will take time for people to believe this is happening. We are happy that it is progressing but we will not be satisfied until everybody who needs and seeks a home has one. That is why work will continue. However, the financial and human resources are in place. Our teams have been strengthened, procedures have been changed and during 2017 we can crack on with this and implement all the changes we have introduced since last July. Hopefully, we will put a dent in the figures. Everybody agrees that the priority is to find a home for people who do not have one, be it through social or private housing. We must get them a place they can call home because we all agree it is unacceptable to have people living in hotels or other temporary accommodation. We have given a commitment that the use of commercial hotels will have ended by July 2017 and we are on track to achieve that. It will be difficult, but we are determined to do it. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, has made it clear on numerous occasions that it will be achieved.