Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is always welcome to the House. It is good to see him back here. We spent many days in this House between 2011 and 2016. It was productive and we all learned a lot. The SHD process is much maligned and, to a large extent, rightly so, but it was brought in with good intentions. At the time, the advice given to the Minister was that the structure with local authorities and An Bord Pleanála was not working, which is why the SHD process was introduced. Let us go back to that time and that reason. Of course we would all have wanted to see it be more successful and to have got more housing developments over the line. I reject any implied suggestion that the motivation for the creation of the SHDs was not in any way genuine because that is not true. This legislation is timely and welcome. Some local authorities have the capability to deliver large-scale projects while others do not. My experience of local authorities as a councillor and as a Senator observing them is that some are great at delivering targets while others are appalling. There is no uniformity, meaning that communities suffer and targets are not delivered. Why are councils regularly not meeting their targets across all sections, be it Traveller accommodation or housing aid for older people? In some cases, almost 100% of the allocation from the Department, given in good faith and negotiated through a budget process, is not spent and is left with the Department. That is unacceptable, yet no questions are answered and no one is held accountable for what is happening in local authorities that fail gloriously to deliver targets. This issue needs to be addressed. I do not know how the Minister can go about doing that, but there are ways and means. Unfortunately, not too many heads roll in the public service. In the private sector, if there is consistent bad management and failure to deliver targets, heads roll because they have to.

Regarding other issues in local authority areas, many casual vacancies are left open for years. By and large, I would give Clare County Council a B grade. It is not bad in some areas. It is very good in some, for example, tourism, but only average in others, for example, the delivery of housing. During the 2020 general election, a person died in a one-bedroom house in a local authority estate near where I live, but that house was only reallocated 14 or 15 months later. That is unacceptable. The slow turnaround in casual vacancies is causing a great deal of trouble.

Councillors have responsibilities as well. The number of objections made to housing developments, particularly social housing developments and Traveller accommodation, never ceases to amaze me. As public representatives, we all have a responsibility to have houses built so that those who need them get them. I appeal to public representatives to think twice before lodging objections to a development. By and large, the professionals employed by the local authority are competent enough to take community observations on board. If that does not work, then a development can be appealed to An Bord Pleanála, which is at least supposed to have the expertise to adjudicate on matters and deal with concerns that were not identified by the local authority.

By having the local authority and An Bord Pleanála involved, we will see a reduction in the number of cases that are judicially reviewed and delayed. The objective is to build more houses. I hope that this legislation assists the Minister in his extremely ambitious plans, which the country and its people need, including families in dire need of accommodation.