Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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79. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government his views on the assertion that red tape and restrictions on borrowing capacity are preventing councils from engaging in more direct building; the typical timelines for design, master planning, cost appraisal, establishment of funding lines, planning approval, tendering and construction on direct build projects; and if his Department has undertaken any evaluation of the efficiency and effectiveness of these processes compared to best international practice. [39142/20]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Increasing the supply of housing, particularly new build social and affordable is a priority for me and for this Government. The Programme for Government commits to increasing the social housing stock by more than 50,000, with an emphasis on new builds. In Budget 2021, we backed this objective with funding of €3.3 billion for the delivery of housing. The available funding will deliver 12,750 new social homes through build, acquisition and leasing. A major focus of this investment is the delivery of new build, with an overall target of 9,500 new homes and the increased build targets will see increased local authority build on local authority land.

In progressing this major construction programme it is important to pursue timely delivery while also ensuring value for money in terms of Exchequer funding. In this regard, social housing projects, like all publicly-funded construction projects, must comply with the Government’s Public Spending Code and Capital Works Management Framework (CWMF), the objectives of which are to ensure greater cost certainty, better value for money and financial accountability.

My Department, working with local authorities has sought to streamline its "4-stage" approval process for social housing and to introduce other measures to increase the pace of delivery. As a result of this work a pre-construction programme of 59 weeks was agreed, which includes design, Part 8 approval, detailed design, preparation of tender documentation, issuing tenders and tender reports. The 59-weeks includes 15 weeks for the requisite Department approvals, which occur in parallel with local authority activities where possible.

Local authorities have been able to reduce this pre-construction timeline further using design and build frameworks. Off-site construction has also been used to reduce local authority construction timelines.

Building on this work, in September I increased the Single-Stage Approval Process for local authority Social Housing Capital Construction Projects from €2m to €6m, to give further autonomy to local authorities to progress projects by reducing the number of approvals sought from the Department from four to one.

There are approximately 20 projects (50 units) (under €2m) currently going through the single stage process and one project (under €6m) about to transition due to the increased limit. To date approximately 35 projects (113 units) are on site or completed having used the single stage process.

Earlier this year I established a High Level Housing Delivery Group which meets regularly and includes key stakeholders from the local authorities Approved Housing Bodies, the Housing Agency and the Housing Delivery Coordination Office (HDCO). This Group meets regularly to monitor and coordinate delivery of social housing programmes and to identify and address any systemic issue that could block or delay progress.