Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I warmly welcome the Minister. I want to start by thanking some people because sometimes we get lost in all of the controversies and setbacks on housing. I thank the chief executives of the local authorities, some of whom are watching. Two or three days ago I made a request of them by email and I can happily tell the House that 26 of the chief executives wrote back with data. This is positive and would not have happened a few months ago. In the email I stated the Minister was coming to the Seanad today and I am sure that helped things along. It is interesting that they are engaging. If ever housing is discussed in the Seanad or by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government I always make a point of contacting stakeholders, such as the chief executives of the local authorities, the directors of housing and local authority members. I send them the live link because it is important that they know what we are doing. They will not hear it from anyone else. They can see it themselves if they wish and many of them tune in.

I also acknowledge the Minister's staff. I am a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government, as is Senator Murnane O'Connor, and we have a good strong working relationship with the Department. It is robust from time to time, but anyone who tunes in knows it is a very constructive committee that works well with the departmental officials. The Minister will vouch for this himself.

The time has come to have an independent correlation of all of the statistics. There is so much media spin about what are the issues, what the Department states and what someone else states, and it is about time we had more updated facts on waiting times, housing delivery and a range of issues. I want to share some information I received because it is interesting. Today, in Cork City Council's area 3,590 people are on the social housing list and 89 adults and 89 children are in emergency accommodation. For Dublin City Council, the figures are 17,445 people on the housing list with 2,428 people homeless. For Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council the figures are 4,524 people on the social housing list and 260 people registered as homeless. I could go on. We expect the numbers in these areas to be high. In Waterford 1,117 people are on the housing list, 1,830 people are in receipt of the housing assistance payment and 135 people are in emergency accommodation. It is important to get a sense of perspective on what the issues are. Let us see if we can look again at how we control the data so we can centralise it and have accurate data that has integrity.

Will the Minister outline why we see less output in terms of the delivery of public housing on public land? I advocate public housing. I do not have a hang-up about who builds houses or where they are built but it is important we have good quality public housing, with social housing on social land. Throughout the country we have land that is not being used for the delivery of social housing. It is time to have an inventory of our State lands. I know the Minister is doing this. Recently, I had a very interesting experience regarding a property I acquired. I went to the Land Registry and other Departments to do land searches and learned an awful lot about land. I happened to meet an agent representing CIÉ. I did not tell him who I was but I went out a lot wiser having spent half an hour with him. I asked him why he was there and he told me. I was encouraged by the fact he was doing an inventory of lands to make a more detailed return to some Departments. It encouraged me. There is a real need to look at the inventory of land. We have land in the ownership of State port companies throughout the country. We also have local authority lands. From my experience of interfacing with a number of local authorities I know they simply do not know themselves their inventory of lands. I know from looking at all 31 of the local government audit reports for 2017 that the auditors in the Department's local government auditing service in the Custom House have asked local authority chief executives to provide them with more detail on their property assets register. These are important connections that feed into housing and where we can get land.

We clearly need to roll out more public housing. We also need private housing and affordable housing. The Minister represents a Dublin constituency. Working couples in Dún Laoghaire, South Dublin, Fingal and Dublin city cannot afford to live there. People are now looking for jobs far outside the city to try to match work with their ability to pay for accommodation. This is not sustainable or satisfactory. This is an issue. I know the Minister knows all of this but I want to reiterate the points because they are important.

If the Minister has time, I would like to hear where we will go on Shanganagh Castle in Shankill. It is on State lands and its disposal was authorised by the former Minister for Justice and Equality, Senator Michael McDowell. That is going back some time.They are sitting in the ownership of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. I acknowledge we are at a relatively advanced stage but every time I ask where we are in relation to them, no one seems to be able to tell me. It is not acceptable that we should have to wait another year, possibly two years, before we see building on that land.

I would like the Minister to share some detail on the Central Mental Hospital - a very substantial piece of State land - and what might happen there. I would like, if possible at this juncture, for the Minister to talk about Thornton Hall. Can we get some land out of Thornton Hall for the delivery of affordable and social housing? These are issues of importance and they need to be addressed. We must go back, as I stated, to the local authorities and find what we can do with them on building land. They are willing, they tell me. They are ready. They are keen to build properties. We need to be clear about the channel of funding and the expertise that we can bring into play to deliver houses.

It is a massive task. It is one of the biggest political challenges of our time. Brexit, housing and health are the three key major challenges for the Government. The Minister does not underestimate them. I do not underestimate them and nor does any other Member. We must deliver on housing for our people. We delivered social housing in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. It still stands today. It is important that we have this housing for people.

I thank the Minister for coming to the House. I do not doubt his absolute commitment to this task. It is an unenviable one. It is difficult. I would like the Minister to finally touch on the issue of the national affordable housing scheme and the related regulations. I understand from the Department officials that there is work going on regarding the necessary regulations around that but we need to fast-track that scheme. We need to get it out into the public domain as quickly as possible because we want to assist people to own their own homes or to rent homes. We want people to be in homes and to be happy and have good, sustainable communities. This will not happen overnight.