Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I compliment the Minister of State on his presentation, which I listened to in my rooms. The Pillar 5 sites have been very successful so far. Major progress has been made in a very short period of time. Realistically it is one of the key issues within the Government’s plank for us to ensure the housing market gets back onto an even keel and moves forward. The information today about the construction of homes being at a seven year high is a very positive move. Having reached that point it is a great step forward from where we were.

In my own part of the world we have seen projects progress in the last three or four months at a rapid rate in Macroom, Skibbereen, two in Clonalkilty, one in Kinsale and one in Carrigaline. This is positive because these are key towns that need social housing development. It is appropriate to have this kind of development in these key locations. Obviously there are going to be issues. The rent capped zones are a key issue that must be dealt with; some places are in and some are out. In a town five miles from my home in a place called Carrigaline there are some 20,000 people, 14,000 of whom are in a rent capped zone and 6,000 are not. One zone is in the Ballincollig-Carrigaline electoral area and one zone in the Kinsale-Bandon electoral area. As a result of geographical issues in the Bandon-Kinsale electoral area 6,000 people who live on the south side of Carrigaline are not in the rent capped zone. These anomalies must be examined.

When we set up the zones we looked at electoral boundaries. These could change like the wind. I believe we are going to have a review of the general election boundaries followed by a review of the local election boundaries. In many ways we might look at the whole idea of electoral districts because they have not changed since 1891, and I do not believe they will change anywhere. Maybe we should be looking at more permanent boundaries. This would ensure we have security of rent and we could also look at a smaller demographic. At the moment we are looking at demographics that are quite large. Consider the Bandon-Kinsale district. It has 78,000 people in one electoral district.. This is equivalent to the size of county such as Carlow. Maybe there needs to be a slight review of the actual strategy regarding the rent zones. It is a work in progress. In the short space of time that we have put this framework and body of work together there has been major progress. Now it is about building on that progress and going forward. Using voids and building of social housing will be key to delivering on that. With the progress we have seen in the past six months I am confident we can make more progress and see the delivery that is required. I hope that something will be done with the rent pressure zones in the key catchment areas affected. When we look at the smaller picture it might help us if we were to narrow the scope and to look at electoral districts rather than going forward with the large electoral areas we have now.