Vol. 946 No. 1
1. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government his Department's engagement with the European Strategic Investment Fund on social housing PPP investment; and his views on whether the finance for the 2,500 social homes submitted to the Department of Finance task force can be attained through these sources. [17119/17]
I ask the Minister to outline his Department's engagement with the European Strategic Investment Fund on social housing PPP investment and his views on whether the finance of the planned 2,500 social homes submitted to the Department of Finance task force can be obtained through this source of funding.
In November 2014, my Department submitted potential projects to the Department of Finance in respect of the task force report for the European Fund for Strategic Investment, including the social housing PPP programme. Investment in social housing through the public private partnership, PPP, model is part of a wider plan to accelerate the supply of social housing, and is now reflected in the second pillar of the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness.
The National Development Finance Agency, NDFA, is acting as financial adviser to my Department and the relevant local authorities. In that context, a submission has been made through the NDFA to the European Investment Bank, EIB, seeking finance from the European Fund for Strategic Investment to support the provision of some 1,500 social housing units under the social housing PPP programme. The submission, which is being appraised by the EIB, is in respect of a framework loan to provide financing to private sector partners to construct, finance, operate and maintain the housing units concerned.
The EIB is further involved in supporting social housing Ireland through loan finance provided through the Housing Finance Agency, HFA. On 2 March 2017, I announced a new €200 million long-term loan which has been agreed between the EIB and the HFA. The combined package, including matching funding provided by the HFA, is €405 million. The new loan is to support construction of an estimated 1,400 new homes and the refurbishment of more than 700 properties in Dublin and other locations across Ireland. The scope for further investment by the EIB in social housing in Ireland, including through the European Fund for Strategic Investment, is currently being actively explored.
I thank the Minister for his reply. I am acutely aware of the significant public infrastructure deficit across the country, the lack of capital investment over the past number of years and how economic productivity has been held back as a result. The most important area is housing, an area where there is a crisis. It is immoral that the State is leaving millions of euro on the table for European investment banks which is earmarked for investment in public infrastructure under the Juncker plan. My belief is that the risk aversion of the Government to PPP rather than constraints proposed by the fiscal rules is holding this back.
The fiscal rules are the greatest barrier to increased State investment in infrastructure. However, the European Commission Juncker plan to enable Government flexibility rather than the application of fiscal rules would promote investment in areas such as social housing. Yet in Ireland, the only public infrastructure projects being built and financed under the Juncker plan are 14 primary care units.
We need to think outside the box. Why is the Department so unwilling to engage with private finance to try to accelerate the flagging housing construction programme?
I agree in principle with the Deputy. A European fund is targeted at investment across the European Union to improve competitiveness and increase economic activity. That is the whole point of the Juncker plan. Ireland has an infrastructural deficit. We have been unable to afford to spend the kind of money that we would like to have spent over the past seven or eight years. The previous Government faced the same challenges.
As our economy recovers, and as tax revenues improve and the tightness of the fiscal constraints within which we have to operate loosen, undoubtedly that will mean increased expenditure on targeted capital projects. Access to money is not the problem, whether it involves the EIB, private investors or equity funds. The challenge is being able to spend money under the fiscal rules. Borrowing money is not an expensive business for a Government. Being able to spend it under the rules we have signed up to is the challenge. That is why PPPs are potentially a very useful mechanism to put in place commercial investments, along with private sector interests. We are considering the ways in which can be facilitated.
It is also probably true to say that the cost of PPPs today is significantly less than it might have been ten or 15 years ago in terms of the cost of finance. There is some merit to what the Deputy has said. Ultimately, it will be a decision for the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
I thank the Minister. My belief and that of my party is that we should build social houses and that we are constrained by the fiscal rules. Housing is the social and economic issue of our generation, and housing provision should be a right rather than a requirement. I was present in the House earlier when Seán Lemass was mentioned, and a Member suggested what he would have done about another issue. We in Fianna Fáil know what Seán Lemass would have done about housing. He would have ensured that the Irish State built and managed social housing and provided homes for our citizens.
In 2005 the EIB said, in reference to the Juncker plan, it was confident that the plan would be the catalyst for the financing of social housing and associate investment in community development as a priority target. We are not availing of the European fund enough. I ask the Minister to be more innovative in the way we finance and manage the State's building of social housing. I do not see any answer today that gives me confidence that we will get on top of the growing housing crisis.
Whereas I need to be careful about what I say in the context of how we draw down funding, in particular in the context of the European Union fiscal rules because the Ministers for Public Expenditure and Reform and Finance are primarily responsible for that, I can certainly comment on social housing. We are using a series of new approaches to drive delivery. We have already committed €5.35 billion in our investment programme for social housing which will contribute an extra 47,000 social houses units to the social housing stock in the next four to four and half years.
To put that into context, it will increase our social housing stock by nearly 30% over a four-year period. It is a very significant investment commitment and one of the very few multi-annual commitments the Government has made in order to respond to the social housing need with the required level of urgency.
Most Members of the House would accept that there was an over-reliance on the private sector, in particular the private rental sector, to solve the needs of social housing and families who needed State intervention. We are looking to correct that, while at the same time supporting many individuals and families in the private rental sector. It is a combination of Part VII. I remind the Deputy that in the past developers were given the opportunity to buy out of their Part VII responsibilities, which is no longer the case.
We have dramatically increased funding and encouraged AHBs to build more, something to which they are responding well. We have ramped up the capacity of local authorities to deliver in a much more ambitious way than we have seen for at least a decade. Things are moving in the right direction. The Deputy will see the numbers being delivered.
3. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government his plans for reforming the commercial rates and valuations system in local authorities; and the details of progress being made on the rates alleviation measures mentioned in the rural action plan. [17419/17]
I ask the Minister to outline his plans to reform the commercial rates and the valuation system in local authorities, the details of the progress being made and the rates and alleviation measures mentioned in the rural action plan.
Local authorities are under a statutory obligation to levy rates on any property used for commercial purposes in accordance with the details entered in the valuation lists prepared by the independent Commissioner of Valuation under the Valuation Acts 2001 to 2015. The Commissioner of Valuation has responsibility for valuation matters. The levying and collection of rates are matters for each individual local authority. Commercial rates form an important element of the funding of all local authorities. However, the legislative basis for the levying of rates is spread over a number of enactments, some dating back to the 19th century. Many of the provisions are outdated and not suitable for business trends in the modern era. I have asked my Department to develop proposals for the preparation of a consolidated rates Bill to modernise and consolidate the legislation in this area. Among the measures being addressed in the general scheme of the Bill are provisions to allow a local authority to introduce rates alleviation schemes, which would include schemes to support the implementation of Realising Our Rural Potential: The Action Plan for Rural Development. My Department's work on the general scheme of the Bill is at an advanced stage and I hope to bring it to Government shortly.
I hope we will bring the Bill to the Government before the end of the month. We will see significant changes in a whole series of areas in terms of how rates can be managed by local authorities. That will involve devolution of more power to local authorities and improved approaches to the collection of rates to make sure we have a level playing field for businesses that are competing with each other, and a whole series of other provisions as well that will modernise the legislation on rates.
The Valuation Office is not in my Department - it is in the Department of Justice and Equality - but responsibility in terms of the collection of rates and the role of local authorities in that regard is very much part of my Department's remit. We will update and modernise legislation in that respect and the Deputy will see the content probably in the next three weeks.
I thank the Minister for his response. I have a certain interest in the matter, and as a rate payer myself I have an understanding of it. It must be the most archaic form of tax in terms of the way it is calculated. It is not fit for the modern world we live in.
One specific aspect of commercial rates and the revaluation that is taking place in a number of counties around the country currently is that the impact it will have on them at the end of the fiscal year can be frightening because some properties have not been revalued for up to 30 or 40 years and could face a significant increase in their rates bill in a one-year period. When one takes the total net effect of valuation for the county and the annual rate of valuation, there will be a significant increase in rates. Is there any way the Minister could harmonise the revaluation process over a period, for example, five years, similar to the harmonisation process currently in train for county council and town council rates?
A harmonisation process is under way. It is happening on a county-by-county basis. The Valuation Office is carrying out the work. Some counties are still two years' away from the process while others have had it carried out. I think the revaluation process is currently being carried out in County Kildare. Any time there are rates revaluations, it causes quite a lot of strife because some businesses win and others lose. I accept revaluation is a difficult process for some businesses as I have been contacted by some of them. That said, if we are serious about modernising how the rates base is calculated and doing it in a way that is consistent, we must address inaccuracies that might have built up over time. That is what the revaluation process is all about. Businesses that feel they are being harshly or unfairly treated should avail of the appeals process that is available to them. The Valuation Office does need to be independent. It is not even in my Department. I accept the appeals process is in place for good reason and businesses who feel they are getting unfair treatment should make their case.
I thank the Minister for his reply. We all know the importance of businesses especially in towns and villages and how hard hit they are in terms of commercial rates at a time when we are trying to revitalise local businesses. The Minister mentioned the flexibility within the commercial rates system is very archaic. Even if local authorities wish to incentivise businesses to set up in towns, they find it incredibly difficult to do so because the legislation does not allow it.
Many counties offer 100% relief if a property is vacant. Any incentive I have been trying to promote that gives rates for free involves no cost to a local authority given the existence of the 100% relief on vacant properties as it was not in receipt of income on such properties. We could introduce a few key measures that would involve no cost to local authorities. Another incentive could be a discount for advance payments or direct debits as, due to the current archaic system, one must pay one's bill before one can get a refund. That shows the entire system is archaic and not fit for purpose currently.
It is. That is why we need a new Bill. Vacant properties and the rates that should apply to them are dealt with in the Bill. We will have an opportunity to tease it out in the committee. I will happily take on sensible suggestions in order to get the legislation right. I hope we will be able to start the process soon. I will bring the Bill to Government and I presume it will then go for pre-legislative scrutiny in the committee and we can tease out the detail of it.
A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I do not know whether it is possible to go back and accept Deputy Ó Broin's question.
We will deal with that.
I am happy to facilitate that if it is helpful.
5. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if he will consider reintroducing an affordable housing scheme to assist those on low and middle incomes, in view of the severe lack of affordable and starter homes, the latest house price index figures and the impact of the help-to-buy scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17286/17]
The housing reports from daft.ie and myhome.ie this week show that house prices continue to spiral out of control. The latest REA house price index indicates the average three-bed semi-detached house in Dublin city now costs more than €400,000. To afford that, a first-time buyer would need a deposit of €40,000 and an income of more than €103,000. In order to buy an average house in Dublin, one needs three times the average wage. That is crazy. Why is there no affordable housing scheme? Why has the Minister not introduced a scheme to date and will he do so now?
For the record, house prices are back to where they were in 2002. I accept that prices are increasing at a rate that is not sustainable over a prolonged period but the core response to that must be to dramatically increase supply, in particular where people are looking to buy or rent homes.
A chronic undersupply of housing, over a number of years and across all tenures, is at the heart of the problems in the housing sector. Housing output fell by more than 90% from peak construction levels of more than 93,000 homes in 2006, which was a crazy number, to just over 8,300 new units in 2013. Rebuilding Ireland targets the accelerated and increased supply of housing with the aim of reaching an annual supply of at least 25,000 well planned, high-quality, socially integrated and affordable homes per year.
While I am aware of recent reports on house prices, average prices are still well below the peak levels recorded in 2007, according to the CSO's residential property price index. The key now is to achieve the continued increase in supply of new homes at affordable prices. While I have no plans at this stage to introduce a new affordable housing scheme, although we are working on affordable rental schemes, the range of measures being put in place under Rebuilding Ireland is designed to increase supply significantly and deliver housing at more affordable price points. For example, last week's announcement of a significant funding package of €226 million for enabling infrastructure under the local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, will help to support the provision of more affordable housing in the areas concerned, which have the potential to yield 23,000 new homes by 2021. A further important measure involves the greater use of State lands for mixed tenure housing delivery and considerable work is under way, in particular with the Dublin local authorities, to bring forward well-considered development proposals on a range of sites. The help-to-buy scheme is a limited intervention targeted at new builds only and is designed to encourage additional supply by the construction sector.
The scheme falls within the remit of my colleague at the Department of Finance. I do not disagree with the Deputy. There are significant pressures on many people looking to buy homes at present.
It is little consolation to people who find themselves unable to buy a house to tell them we have not quite reached bubble levels yet. There are two issues with regard to housing. Obviously supply is one, but affordability, which is a very closely related issue, needs special attention in its own right. In recent days, Philip Lane told the finance committee that house prices are increasing to an extent that only people on high incomes can afford them. In this regard, the actions taken in the budget in respect of the help-to-buy scheme have exacerbated the situation for many people. Does the Minister accept this is fuelling house prices? Will he consider suspending the scheme in light of the negative impact it has had?
"No" is the straight answer to that. It is important to put the help-to-buy scheme in context. In the last quarter of last year 3,005 purchases were made by first-time buyers. Of these, only 297, fewer than 10%, were new homes. Given the fact that first-time buyers make up only approximately 25% of the market this means we are speaking about 2.5% of purchases. I do not accept the idea this is driving up house prices.
The whole point of the help-to-buy scheme is this time last year builders were simply not building homes for first-time buyers because they knew first-time buyers did not have the capacity to put together a deposit, which is something to which the Deputy referred at the start of her contribution. Houses were expensive and the obligations on first-time buyers to put together deposits made it impossible for most of them to aspire to buy a home. The Central Bank and the Government reached the same conclusion because of the same evidence, that we needed to help first-time buyers to get a deposit together while at the same time limit the amount of money a first-time buyer could borrow, linked to income. The net effect of the help-to-buy scheme has been to change the dynamics in the market and we are now seeing a lot more starter homes being built. Unfortunately, this takes time to impact positively on the market in terms of increased supply, but if we look at commencements, planning permissions and activity in the sector we are seeing significant increases.
The lack of availability of affordable building land is a factor in this, as is the potential for land hoarding. Last week, we saw Dublin City Council's first vacant site register, with 25 potential sites for house building. Half of these were publicly owned sites. The obvious thing in a housing crisis is to make publicly owned land available at a low cost or no cost to provide affordable housing. Why does the Minister refuse to take this action? There are plenty of sites in public ownership, which the Minister could make available under an affordable housing scheme, where small builders or bigger builders could come along and build three-bed houses for the suggested cost of €160,000, which would then be made available to people on low and average incomes. Housing is completely unaffordable for anybody on any type of average income. Why does the Minister not introduce a new affordable housing scheme? He has the land to do it. Will he tell us why he refuses to act?
Just so the Deputy knows what is actually happening out there, we are moving ahead on multiple sites at present where local authorities are inviting builders-----
Not with an affordable scheme.
-----to build at much increased volume. The big problem we have is there has not been house building activity to the extent we need, and we need a combination of measures to make property available. We need to get vacant properties back into use and we need to see more houses being built on public land - in particular on public land. We have just finished an audit of all of our publicly owned sites throughout the country. We are speaking to other State agencies which also have landbanks that could be strategically used for housing and on some of these we are looking at affordable rental properties.
That is not what I am talking about.
If the Deputy and the Minister are going to have a bilateral it will not be in here.
Why does the Minister not have an affordable scheme?
The Minister's time is up.
The Minister did not answer.
I ask all Deputies, the Minister and the Minister of State to observe the time limit because people here have been waiting all day.
2. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government in view of the fact that levels of homelessness have increased by 27% in the past 12 months, and that February homeless figures show that increases in individual family and child homelessness have reached historic highs, the way in which he intends to meet his target date of July 2017 to ensure that no families will be living in hotels and bed and breakfasts. [17285/17]
I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and the Minister for their flexibility. Despite our best efforts at the water committee, the committee has just voted not to take a decision until next week. This is why I was delayed.
The Minister knows what the issue is and I am looking for very specific answers to the question. How many of the 1,239 families in the most recent homeless figure statistics does the Minister hope to have out of hotels and housed by the end of the quarter, as per the Rebuilding Ireland commitment? Where does he expect these families to go? Is it to local authority tenancies or rapid builds? Will he give a very clear commitment that none of the 700 or 800 families he will move out of hotels will be moved into any other type of emergency accommodation but will get secure long-term tenancies?
We have a commitment that by 1 July we will no longer be using hotels for emergency accommodation for families. This is an ambitious target but I think we will meet it, and we will do this through a series of solutions. Obviously the preference is to put as many families as we can into social housing. Some of them will be in HAP tenancies, some of them will be in homeless HAP tenancies, some of them will be in the rapid build social housing, which will be completed before this date, and many of them will be in more conventional social housing that comes onstream.
The Deputy's colleague, Deputy Ellis, came to the opening of the new family transition hub in Drumcondra and I think he was pretty impressed by it. It is being run by Respond! Housing Association. There will be a number of similar projects, in the broader Dublin area in particular. We are also looking at Cork, Limerick and Galway as to whether we may need transition centres for families, where there are specific supports designed for homeless families who need help on a temporary basis while we find them a permanent housing solution.
I do not want to do it here today, but when it is appropriate to do so I can provide the Deputy with the details of the various projects we will use in Dublin. My preference is to be able to transition people from hotels, particularly people who have been there for some time, that we prioritise them for HAP and social housing, and that we look to use the family transition homes for other families who may, for whatever reason, come into homelessness.
To put this into context, what we are speaking about is a specially designed facility on which we are spending millions of euro, which will have facilities such as homework clubs, proper dining facilities that are family oriented, supports, counselling, transportation to schools and all of the things that can make family life as normal as we can make it while the State finds long-term housing solutions for the families concerned. I am confident the combination of all of these approaches will deliver the target date we have set, which I recognise is only a few months away. All of the chief executives, particularly in the Dublin local authorities, are under some pressure to deliver for us. I hope they will deliver on what they have promised.
It is all very interesting, but none of it answered any of the questions I asked so I will go through them again. What we all want to hear is not the aspiration because we support that. What we want to know is specific information, as follows. How many of the 1,239 families recorded in emergency accommodation are in hotels, and of those in hotels how many does the Minister expect to have housed by his target date? Will the Minister give a commitment here today that none of these families will be moved from hotels into other forms of emergency accommodation, even if that other form of accommodation is better than hotels? We are looking for a clear guarantee these families will be moved into tenancies of the type described by the Minister. Will the Minister also give a commitment that as he is developing these family hubs no attempt will be made, for example, to take a hotel and reclassify it as a family hub?
The facility the Minister talked about in north County Dublin, being run by Respond! Housing Association, is a good quality facility. I want to hear the Minister say specifically that there will be no attempt to reclassify hotels as anything other than that. Are there timelines in his discussions with managers, particularly for Dublin local authorities? How many families does the Minister hope to have out of hotel accommodation this month, next month and the month after? We support this recommendation but the worry many of us have is that it is not going to be met. We would like to get more information as to how the Minister plans to meet it over the period from now until June.
I understand that there are about 850 families in hotel accommodation today. I stand to be corrected on that, but it is not a million miles away from the exact figure. It might be slightly higher or slightly lower. The intention is to ensure that as many of those families as possible are in long-term housing assistance payment, HAP, tenancies or in social housing. I will not give absolutes because different families need different things. The whole point is that when a family or an individual is made homeless, the State looks after that person or people for a temporary period, as it should be, until we can find suitable accommodation which is supported appropriately for them. That could be Housing First, families in hotels who should not be there, or individuals who need support for mental health concerns, addiction or whatever it is. We have put significant increased resources into improving emergency facilities.
All the talk on homelessness is focused primarily on emergency facilities, numbers and so on as opposed to ensuring that we get families and individuals into appropriate medium and long-term housing. That is what we will try to do with the 750 and the others who will unfortunately be coming into homelessness between now and the middle of the year. There will be an element of these transition hubs being part of the solution as well as social housing, homeless HAP and HAP. The combination of all of those can deliver much better results for families and support for them than we have today.
The Deputies all have to tailor their responses to fit within the two minutes, one minute or whatever it may be. There will be people here at the end who will lose out. I am calling on everybody to do that, Minister and all. I call Deputy Ó Broin.
I thank the Minister for the figure of 850 in accommodation. It is clear that he is not willing to give a commitment that those families will be moved into permanent tenancies. If I understand him correctly, he is saying that they will only be moved into other emergency accommodation if that is what is in their best interests. If somebody does not need supported temporary accommodation and just needs a home, will the Minister give a commitment that those people, at least, will not be put into other emergency accommodation? Will he also give a clear commitment that he is not currently looking at properties that are hotels, whether they are currently tenanted or not, to lease out and redesignate as family hubs? That would simply be leaving people in hotels and classifying them as something else. While the Minister is not going to get time in his answer here today, can he e-mail members of the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government and give us some indication of what the month-by-month targets are going to be between now and June, to demonstrate convincingly that he is going to meet this target?
With respect, it seems to me that the Deputy is trying to find a negative in a positive here.
I am trying to get a commitment.
He is trying to find answers.
I know he is.
It is a clear commitment that the Minister made some months.
It is called questions and answers.
We have given a very-----
The Minister is rolling back on it because he is failing to meet-----
The Minister, without interruption.
Is the Deputy going to listen? Does he not want to?
I want to listen.
We have given a very ambitious commitment and target here that I intend to meet. The Deputy is trying to find absolutes here, so that, as usual, he can create negative headlines out of something that is predominantly a very good ambition to try to solve problems for families.
I support that. I said that I support it.
I am not going to give the Deputy absolutes. There are always exceptions when it comes to the complexity of homelessness. We are trying to get families out of unsuitable, expensive hotel accommodation into much more suitable temporary accommodation if that is what is needed in the short term. In the long term, we are trying to get them tenancies either through HAP or in social housing. I will happily talk to the Deputy in some detail about the individual projects as they emerge, but I am not going to start giving him absolutes about all 150 families, because I do not think I can stand over that fully. Different families need different solutions. Our job is to work with them all with generosity and compassion.
4. Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the number of voluntary housing organisations that have been provided with assistance from his Department in County Tipperary each year since 2012; the number of voluntary housing units that have been built in County Tipperary each year since 2012; the number of proposals from voluntary associations with his Department for the provision of voluntary housing in County Tipperary; the efforts being taken by his Department to proactively engage with and support voluntary housing associations throughout the country; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17417/17]
I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for allowing me back in. I was with the Minister, Deputy Leo Varadkar upstairs. I have an interest to declare in that I am the chairperson of Caislean Nua Voluntary Housing Association in Newcastle. I believe that the whole voluntary sector has been under-utilised by successive Governments. It was not back in the good times of the 2000s. It has a big role to play and can play it. It can do it, as we did ourselves in Newcastle. I pay tribute to my board for getting sites procured and developed, with the whole lot done in 18 months. It has taken too long for local authorities to build houses, as we all know.
For the record, we would all agree with Deputy McGrath, and we think there is great potential to use approved housing bodies and housing associations throughout the country. That is why they have been allocated up to €1 billion of the spend of the €5.5 billion to make this happen. There is great opportunity in Tipperary and in many other counties to tap into and work with approved housing bodies, exactly as the Deputy says. That is something we are very strongly supporting and encouraging. Our message to all local authorities is to strengthen that relationship at management level and also at local authority representative level, and for the councils to feel part of that and closer to the approved housing bodies.
In the status report to the end of 2016 for social housing construction projects, which was recently published and is on the website, there are 16 projects of various scale for the Tipperary County Council area, either recently completed or being advanced. Three of these are being advanced by approved housing bodies to deliver 20 units of accommodation at Fethard, Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir. Further projects are being added to this list on an ongoing basis, as they are developed by local authorities and approved housing bodies. Funding is in place for all of these projects and I am keen that they are advanced as soon as possible.
Since 2012, almost €3 million has been provided to 12 approved housing bodies for Tipperary projects under our Department’s capital assistance scheme, to build or acquire houses and apartments as part of sheltered housing projects, with 29 units delivered. Under my Department’s social housing current expenditure programme, two approved housing bodies are managing seven leased units in Tipperary. There are also approvals in place with two approved housing bodies, via the capital advance leasing facility, for 54 new social units in Tipperary across four projects.
Approved housing bodies have an important role to play under Rebuilding Ireland, with the capacity to contribute around a third of the 47,000 new social housing units targeted over the period to 2021, using a range of delivery methods. As with all local authorities, we would encourage Tipperary County Council to work constructively with the range of local and national approved housing bodies that operate in the county. More progress on this by the local authority can result in better social housing delivery. For example, the repair and leasing scheme, rolled out on a national basis in February, offers a significant opportunity for collaboration with approved housing bodies to maximise the potential impact of the scheme. We hope to see Tipperary County Council working with approved housing bodies on this and other social housing programmes to further improve delivery. I cannot stress enough-----
The Deputy has exceeded the allocated time by 20 seconds. I call Deputy McGrath.
-----the importance of the repair and leasing initiative. I really encourage the Deputy to look at that as well.
I thank the Minister of State.
Hold on. The rules are going to apply to everybody here.
I could not see the clock.
No. There will be others who want their questions answered lately. I call Deputy McGrath. He has one minute.
I thought I had two.
One minute.
That is fine. I will stick to it. I thank the Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, for coming to Clonmel this week and making that announcement of funding to extra housing units there. I am disappointed that the county council did not notify all the Deputies of the Dáil. We will be there to meet the Minister and give him a hand and turn the sod, as will the local representatives.
The Irish Council for Social Housing, ICSH, of which I was a member for a number of years, and Dr. Donal McManus and his team there do tremendous work. I am pleading with the Minister to use those volunteers. They can do it. Ní neart go cur le chéile. I am not talking about the big voluntary boards, though Respond! Housing Association and the others do a good job. I am talking about small housing associations throughout the country that are building ten, 15, 20 or even as few as six units. They are vital. They look after the stock as well, and have a great relationship with the tenants. The voluntary housing associations have a huge role to play. I hope that the Minister will make full use of them, because the Department was cautious of them a few years ago. I hope that has changed.
I am reminded by my colleague, Deputy Simon Coveney, that I am not often asked to speak even faster, but I will try to work on it. To be clear, we agree with what Deputy McGrath is asking. We encourage all local authorities to work with approved housing bodies and housing associations throughout the country. There is money set aside for that specifically. We need everyone on board here. Our message is for all local authorities and all parties.
We all agree with the targets set in this as a minimum. People want more, and that is fine. This money should be spent, and that involves partnership with all the local authorities, the housing bodies and the associations mentioned. Quite a bit of money has been allocated to Tipperary, and it is ahead of the targets that were set for the last three years. New targets will be set in the next couple of months. To be clear, the recent target set was for 832 units to be met by the Tipperary local authority in 2015, 2016 and 2017. It is already at 343 units, so it is ahead of the target by 30 or 40 units. That is great, and we encourage that. The funding is in place, and we cannot stress that enough. The money is there for a pipeline of projects. What is coming through the system is 130 plus 54 more from the housing bodies. We can do more, Tipperary can do more, and it is up to the Deputy, the councillors and the county councils to drive it on. The Department will do its bit.
The Deputy should be afraid to utter the word "pipeline", with all that is going on at the committee because there might be ruptures in that pipeline. I am delighted that Tipperary is that far ahead. I want more progress. There is an adage that where Tipperary leads Ireland follows. It is nice to hear we are ahead, but we are not far enough ahead and we need to do more. The happiest job I have been involved in in my political career and my voluntary career was being the chairperson of the Casilean Nua voluntary housing association. I want to salute the team of volunteer board members and the work they have done and continue to do, particularly Mrs. O'Keeffe and Mrs. O'Donnell, in running and maintaining the buildings. One of the Ministers might visit it some time. We need more of that. They can provide solutions and get around corners much more easily than Departments because people do not have to hand out money for sites and everything else. There is huge potential there. I again want to pay tribute to all the voluntary housing organisations up and down the country. They have done the work, they are able to do the work and they will do the work. All they want is more support and co-operation from the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government and the Departments it is associated with because for a while the unit dealing with voluntary associations was stood down and they had to go around the country to five or six different offices to get any project on the road.
I can speak with confidence about pipelines because the Minister, Deputy Coveney, and I have been in Tipperary recently opening new treatment plants, thanks to Irish Water and the great work it is doing with the new investment plan it has, thanks to the money it has been allocated. We should compliment it on the work it is doing.
On housing, when it comes to Tipperary, it is doing well with its targets. We will increase the targets because there is increased funding set aside for social housing. There is increased demand on all of us and on all local authorities to deliver that, and there are a number of methods to do that, through various schemes. I cannot stress enough how important it is that the two new schemes for vacant properties are used, namely, the sale and lease back and the buy and renew schemes. The approved housing bodies are part of that as well.
Tipperary has been allocated up to €60 million for housing and social housing over the last two years, and it is important that money gets spent. We are changing the processes to make it easier to spend it and to deliver, so let us work on that.
We will not send it back. Do not worry.
