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

Under the principal Act the planning authority has discretion to say they do not need the five years. I think we are making progress with regard to Rebuilding Ireland. Compared with last year there are now 10,000 houses in the social housing pipeline. They are not all on site but over 2,000 are on site and being worked on at the moment. They were not there a year ago. That is progress. All the trends are going in the right direction and planning permission has been commenced. The infrastructural fund has been announced and individual projects are being worked. We have identified over 800 sites in State ownership that will also be developed. That is progress. Each local authority must have plans in by September for all of those sites. It is a bit like the action plan for jobs. A great deal of work had to go on in the first year on the foundations, for want of a better word, for building but the results will be visible in the years ahead. I am quite happy and have no doubt that in terms of housing units, completion and build that will happen over the next three or four years because of the work we have done in the past year. We want to make more progress on dealing with homelessness today. We are slightly behind our target of getting people out of hotels. That will be dealt with in August and September. The planning and development can never be quick enough but I am happy that is it on track.

The planning authority has discretion. That is in the principal Act. We will bring forward more amendments on the bigger planning Bill to deal with land hoarding and Senator Boyhan's concern, which will also deal with Senator Ó Clochartaigh's concerns.