Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Will the Leader arrange to have a debate with the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy? It is timely and appropriate that we should keep the focus on Rebuilding Ireland. I am involved in the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government. It is an excellent committee chaired by Deputy Maria Bailey, and a lot of work is going on there. It is central and critical as housing is a major issue. Everyone agrees that health, housing and education are the three major issues that need to be focused on. It is important that this House has some update from the Minister on the Rebuilding Ireland plan. I want to focus in particular on several issues. The Minister deemed it necessary to have two summits, whereby he summoned all 31 local authority chief executives to the Custom House to discuss the housing crisis. We know there is a housing crisis. I checked with the Department last night and the Minister has failed to publish targets. He undertook that he would set ambitious targets for the direct build and delivery of social and, more importantly, affordable housing in each of the 31 local authority areas. I have seen them and they are not ambitious, which is an issue I want to debate. That schedule and list has not been published.I call on the Leader to ask the Minister to publish the list of the targets set for the 31 local authorities without delay and I will issue a statement to the press later today in that regard. There are substantial landbanks within State ownership, be that through councils, port companies, education and training boards, health boards or other State agencies, and we need to maximise the potential of these lands for direct build and for the provision of social and affordable housing.

I have no personal ideological or political hang-up as to who builds houses for people. It could be the private sector, the semi-private sector, public private partnerships, local authorities or whatever. We want houses built and we want to reduce the unacceptable waiting lists for people who want homes within their communities. I acknowledge that a lot of work has been done. I would like the Minister to come in and update us and the Leader should use his influence in government to have published within the next few days the list setting out the delivery targets for social and affordable housing as set by the Minister as a result of these summits.