Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This legislation comes to the Seanad having passed all Stages in the Dáil. I am sure the Bill will pass in this House as well, given the Government's majority and the support coming from some Members of the Opposition. It remains my view and that of Sinn Féin that the most cost-effective and fastest way to deliver a large volume of social and affordable homes is through the delivery of public homes on public lands by local authorities, approved housing bodies and community housing trusts.

The basis of our position is that if local authorities are starved of funding and the ability to build homes, the way to reverse that situation is not to set up another quango. The answer, instead, is to adequately fund local authorities to build public homes on public land. The LDA was set up by the former Deputy and Minister, Eoghan Murphy, and has staff, offices, etc. I urge the Minister to essentially split the LDA into two separate functions.One would deal with land management and the other would involve an office located in the County and City Management Association, CCMA, that would assist local authorities with the delivery of housing plans. In our view, there is an urgent need for a non-commercial State agency to have responsibility to ensure the best strategic use of all public lands. Such an agency should have comprehensive CPO powers, a significant land acquisition budget and the political backing of the Government to transfer land from one Department or agency to another, or to local authorities, so it may be used in the best way. In particular, the agency should be a driver for increasing the stock of local authority land in every county for public housing delivery.

Rebuilding Ireland committed to establishing a housing delivery office within the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Its purpose was to assist in speeding up the delivery of social housing through assisting councils with their project pipelines. While the office was established, it was not a success and, at the end of 2019, it was transferred from the Department to the CCMA. As we are aware, however, it is hampered by the continued existence of the Department's overly bureaucratic four-stage approval process. We are also aware that the procurement process adds about 18 months to the development time alone for social housing projects. Moreover, the office does not have enough staff to work with local authorities to meet their housing targets.

Ultimately, we do not need another housing quango; we need local authorities to be adequately funded to deliver social and affordable homes, whereby we provide housing delivered based on local need and local democratic decisions, as outlined by Senator Boyhan. We have failed to support local authorities to do what they do best, that is, build public housing on public land. The answer, therefore, is to fund local authorities adequately, not set up a quango to do exactly what we have prevented them from doing.