Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday the Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health, Deputy Harty, and I went to the site of the national children's hospital and met the people in charge there. Real progress is being made on that building project. Some 420 people are working on that site, but when the structure is completed and the various services are being put in, 2,500 people will be required to work there. It will be a major demand for people with the expertise, including electricians, plumbers and IT people. I agree with Senator Boyhan on the need to ensure we have enough people available in the building industry. We also need to ensure we have enough people in training in the various services. We need to do much more to continue to deal with the growth in the building industry.As regards the housing market, we need to look at how to deliver at a faster pace than over the past three or four years. Real progress is being made in local authorities but some are still not responding to demand in a timely manner. The process of getting sites and approval for building is taking too long in some local authorities and, subsequently, in the Department. We need to expedite the whole process to deliver at a faster rate but we also need to look at the cohort of people who do not qualify for local authority houses and cannot borrow to buy. We need to do something serious for that cohort because the current rental structure is inadequate, there is a lack of security and there is no long-term leasing. If I lease something to somebody in the commercial market for five years, they are then entitled to a 20-year lease with five-year rent reviews and, as tenant, they are responsible for internal upkeep. We need to move to something like that for residential accommodation and now is the time to deal with it, so it is important that we have a debate on it here.