Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. It has been a long day. I support Senator Fitzpatrick's amendment. I come from a project management background. As with anything else, it is all in the scope and the preparation and identifying what is needed in advance to make sure that we reach our targets and that our projects are going to be successful. I welcome the plans we will be developing for periods of three, five and ten years. What actions will we be taking to ensure that each of the local authorities has the scope, the resources and the people in place to deliver these projects? It is not good enough after three years to point the finger and say something was not done. What are we doing to ensure the local authorities have the resources? I think specifically of counties that have very few resources. Galway has the second lowest level of funding and the council just does not have the resources to allocate to housing. We can see the impact when there is low take-up in respect of certain funds that are available, such as the repair-and-lease schemes. I very much support the amendment and I ask that we look at how we are supporting local authorities to reach these targets. We must take project management guidelines into account. It cannot just be a case of asking after three years why something was not done and pointing the finger. I do not support that at all.

Senator Murphy referred to rent. I am very supportive of mixed developments in all of the work that is being done. There is success to be had when we integrate various types of developments in order that they are not all of one type or another. To my mind, that does not bring success. When we build affordable housing and different housing models, we will know they are successful if families are in safe housing that has access to green spaces and services, and that it is not solely designated zones of types of housing. That would not be successful in rural or regional towns or in particular in towns such as Roscommon or Galway. I urge the Minister of State to take that into account and to look at what our measures of success will be.