Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage debate -
Tuesday, 11 Oct 2022

Implementing Housing for All: Discussion

Chairman

Good afternoon and welcome. Today's meeting is the first in a series of meetings where we invite local authorities to discuss their projections on delivery of housing from various different strands of housing that they engage with and the historical numbers of housing they have produced over the past couple of years. The committee intends to bring in a number of local authorities to examine this so that we can see where the progress has been made and identify some of the areas where there are difficulties or blockages and ways that we can assist with that.

I welcome Mr. Owen Keegan, Mr. Coilín O'Reilly and Ms Helen McNamara, Dublin City Council, DCC, and Mr. Frank Curran and Ms Catherine Keenan, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, DLRCC. I welcome the witnesses and thank them for the opening statements they have submitted to the committee in advance.

I will begin with a note on privilege. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the place where Parliament has chosen to sit, namely, Leinster House, in order to participate in public meetings. For witnesses attending in the committee room, they are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their contributions to today's meetings. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. Both members and witnesses are expected not to abuse the privilege they enjoy. It is my duty as Chair to ensure this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative they comply with any such direction. Members and witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I will ask the witnesses to make their opening statements. I will first call Mr. Keegan and then Mr. Curran. The format we follow is a seven-minute segment for each member. The seven minutes consists of time to ask the question and receive the answers. If members want to direct a particular question to a particular local authority that would be helpful. I invite Mr. Keegan to make the opening statement on behalf of Dublin City Council.

Mr. Owen Keegan

I thank the Chair, Deputies and Senators for the opportunity today to brief them on DCC’s housing delivery programme. I set out in the opening statement our delivery over the three years from 2019 to 2021. We delivered just under 1,200 new social housing units. We had just under 1,200 acquisitions and a more than 10,100 rental accommodation scheme, RAS, housing assistance payment, HAP, and leasing agreements, the majority of which were HAP. The past few years have been challenging in regard to social housing delivery. Covid-19 lockdowns, curtailed supply chains, high construction price inflation and general market uncertainty have all disrupted new housing delivery.

In regard to projected social housing delivery, DCC is conscious of the State’s requirement for public housing and we are supportive of the targets set out under Housing For All. We recognise and accept the need to significantly increase new build delivery and to move away from delivery via leasing and other arrangements. DCC has a strong pipeline with designated sites that cover the delivery of more than 15,000 social, cost rental and affordable sales homes that we plan to deliver in the coming years. In 2022, we are confident of meeting our delivery target of 895 new build homes. We have diversified our delivery methods, which now include direct build, public-private partnerships, the housing land initiative, competitive dialogue, partnerships with approved housing bodies, AHBs, and the Land Development Agency, LDA, turnkey acquisitions and Part Vs.

The environment for new housing delivery, both public and private, is particularly difficult at present. There are many issues, including labour, construction inflation and supply chain issues and in regard to the private housing market affordability and restricted access to construction capital.

I will say a few words on Part V. It has been very significant in terms of our housing delivery. Over the past three years, 309 units were delivered via Part V and this year we are forecasting 306 units with approximately 350 in pipeline for 2023. Part V delivery is fully reliant on overall private market delivery and any downturn in the private market will affect the supply of Part V units.

Reference was made in the request to attend this meeting to vacancy and dereliction. We are very conscious of the issues surrounding vacancy and dereliction and the importance of bringing unused housing back into the housing stock. I appreciate it is a great frustration to members, public representatives generally and, indeed, to the general public to see unused properties at a time of major demand for housing. However, it is important to recognise that every derelict home is vacant but not every vacant home is derelict. There is significant confusion in people’s minds between legislation dealing with vacant sites and derelict sites and the powers local authorities have to deal with vacant housing units that are neither derelict nor a site. Dealing with vacant or derelict housing units must be seen as a social intervention rather than a purely economic intervention. There are significant complexities and costs in acquiring and redeveloping these housing units. Frequently the rehabilitation of vacant units does not offer value for money in strict financial terms.

There are various interventions available to deal with vacancy and dereliction. The repair and leasing and buy and renew schemes and the Living City initiative all provide support to citizens and the local authority in bringing derelict and vacant units back into use. We are very committed to co-operating with these schemes. We welcome recent changes, particularly to the Living City initiative and the recently announced vacant homes tax, which will certainly assist in dealing with vacancy and dereliction.

The issue of vacant commercial and retail units being repurposed for housing is being considered by the city council but there are very significant difficulties in terms of compliance with planning and building regulations. I can confirm we have a full-time vacant homes officer and dedicated vacant homes team and have identified approximately 650 vacant homes with potential for redevelopment. To date, approximately 48 of these have been redeveloped and returned to use. We will be expanding that team in 2023.

The city council currently has 77 sites or properties on its derelict sites register. The vast majority of these are residential with the remaining being mixed-use industrial development type sites. Sites can remain on the derelict sites register for a significant time despite the imposition of a levy with interest. So far over the past two years, we have acquired 35 properties that were on our derelict site register. Some 34 of those properties have been repurposed as social housing units and one has been sold on. We have a big programme of acquisition under the Derelict Sites Act and repurposing of properties. We will be happy to take any questions.

Mr. Frank Curran

I thank the Chair and the members of the committee for the invitation to attend to discuss the implementation of Housing for All. I am joined by my colleague, Catherine Keenan, director of housing. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is firmly committed to increasing delivery under Housing for All. Table 1 highlights our delivery from 2018 to 2021, that is, a total of 888 units, 119 acquisitions, 361 build, 206 Part V and 202 leasing. Table 2 shows the expected delivery over the five-year period in our Housing Delivery Action Plan 2022-2026. That consists of 14,059 build, 859 Part V and 1,549 affordable.

The housing delivery action plan was developed in line with the commitment in Housing for All and highlights a significant increase in projected delivery over the next five years. The agreed funding of additional posts by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage will assist with this ambition. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is active through all options in housing to deliver for Housing for All. The remainder of my statement will highlight some of the delivery methods mentioned in the invite letter we received from the committee.

In terms of housing for older people, we are committed to increasing the provision of older persons accommodation through our own build programme, through partnership with approved housing bodies, AHBs, and through Part V. Specific schemes delivered include Rochestown House, The Brambles and Broadford Rise. We consider an element of universal design in our own housing schemes. Examples include 60 universal design, UD, homes provided at Shanganagh and 40 in Stillorgan. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council also works to promote the development of lifetime homes by the private sector and engagement with developers commences at pre-planning stage. This proactive approach has led to a Part V project which is currently on site consisting of 43 homes, 23 of which are designed to Part M compliance for general allocation, 16 designed to UD standard and four bungalows specifically designed for wheelchair users. The continued promotion of right-sizing and development of specific schemes for older persons will enable the best use of our housing stock.

In relation to vacant homes and vacant homes officers, due to a high demand and very high rental income that can be achieved in the private residential sector in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area, there are very few vacant properties or properties available for rent in the market. The vacancy rate for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is 5.5%. This is the third lowest in the country and is consistent with that of a normal, functioning housing market. However, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown continues to maximise the use of vacant properties and is very active in this area.

The buy and renew scheme has proved to be very effective for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. Examples include the purchase of a small housing estate of 12 vacant homes in Churchtown, retrofitted to improve building energy rating, BER, ratings of E to G, to a range from A2 to A3. We continue to optimise the potential of this housing estate and are currently on-site with the construction of four new in-fill homes. Similarly, a block of eight homes in Deans Grange was purchased and refurbished under the buy and renew scheme in 2020.

A key objective in Housing for All is to unlock the potential to utilise vacant heritage building stock. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council purchased a turnkey development of five apartments living over the shop in Dún Laoghaire in 2021. The restoration of this Victorian building also resulted in the occupation of vacant retail units underneath. We are currently on-site developing our own vacant building, formerly our office, in Dún Laoghaire to provide four homes and a retail unit underneath. Similarly, we are on-site refurbishing four vacant coastguard cottages built in the 1800s that came into our ownership when the harbour was transferred to the council.

Over the last few years, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has carried out a deep delve exercise of vacant properties based on the GeoDirectory data. It was possible to eliminate a large number of properties, such as those under construction or business premises or due to size, location, sold, planning permission, etc., which resulted in 77 possible vacant properties for more detailed follow up. These were followed up with the owners resulting in two properties acquired under the repair and leasing scheme and a further two that are under refurbishment.

In January 2022, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council appointed a full-time designated vacant homes officer, VHO. The VHO follows up on any vacant properties brought to our attention, either through the vacant homes site or through direct contact, and actively engages with our property management section. There are currently eight properties that are of active interest and being pursued.

In relation to dereliction, the key barrier to the council acquiring sites or houses under the Derelict Sites Act 1990 is the high cost of the land and property in this county. Consequently, over the past three years, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has carried out extensive work on retrieving levies under the Act in an effort to bring sites back into productive use. In many cases, sites have become derelict while they await demolition and redevelopment through the planning process. Persistent pursual of and engagement with the owners has expedited many of these and brought cases to a successful conclusion. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has succeeded in reducing the average number of sites on the register from 22, at end of 2019, to ten currently on the register. Of those remaining on the register, three have recently been sold and we expect works to start immediately to render them non-derelict, and two have applied for planning permission.

A total of 206 homes were delivered through Part V between 2018 and 2021. Projected delivery for 2021 to 2026 provides for delivery of 859 homes under Part V. Predictions for Part V are difficult and are under constant review. Significant delays have occurred over the past few years due to the impact of Covid-19, the war in Ukraine and subsequent supply chain issues. There are planning permissions in place that carry out a Part V obligation but remain inactive. In addition, some proposed developments are new planning applications, or sites have been recently sold, so it is uncertain if developments will progress under existing planning permissions, or when they will be advanced. A number of projects are currently subject to judicial review. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has contacted and engaged with the majority of the developers operating within our area with a view to activating sites for social or affordable purposes.

The Government calls under Project Tosaigh and Croí Cónaithe cities may also assist in this regard.

Regarding the 10% of affordable housing under Part V, 130 homes are predicted based on known applications. However, as they are subject to planning, An Bord Pleanála etc., predictions and timeframes cannot be applied with accuracy.

The council is progressing a programme of affordable housing with projected delivery of 1,059 homes to 2026. Our commitment is already demonstrated in two mixed-tenure schemes. The first at Enniskerry Road in collaboration with Respond and Tuath, is providing 50 cost-rental homes in the first construction project of its kind in this country. The second is Shanganagh, a partnership with the Land Development Agency, which is also a first for this country and will deliver 306 cost-rental and 91 affordable purchase homes.

I hope this gives members an overview of the quantity, quality and ambition of the work being undertaken in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to deliver under Housing for All. We are happy to answer any questions members may have.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

I thank the witnesses for joining us today and for their work in the local authorities. I feel like a poacher turned gamekeeper with the colleagues from Dublin City Council. My first questions are for Dublin City Council and I may come back in the following rounds. When I was a member of that council, we had many debates on how to increase housing delivery. With Housing for All, the Government has made a number of very significant changes again giving the local authorities the power to deliver affordable homes to purchase for the first time ever and affordable cost-rental. It is also ending co-living, committing to ending leasing and putting a significant emphasis on increasing the number of builds.

The Dublin City Council report refers to the historical social housing figures over recent years. It does not give a detailed projection for the next five years. From a city perspective, homelessness is the acute end of the problem and that is not captured at all in the report. I absolutely acknowledge Dublin City Council's role in its leadership of the Dublin Region Homeless Executive. Certainly, in Dublin Central where more than 60% of the emergency accommodation is provided, I am acutely aware of how important it is and what a priority it is for Dublin City Council.

However, to fix homelessness we need to increase the number of social houses. I genuinely welcome Dublin City Council's doubling of new builds for next year. If it is to reach the target of 15,000, it will need to double that every year for the next four years. Every year it will need to double what it did the year before. Is it geared up to do that? Does it have the resources? Mr. Keegan very accurately called out the external challenges. I ask for a detailed projection on that.

Once the social side of things is fixed, affordability is a major issue in the city. The introduction of affordable cost-rental is a game-changer for people who do not qualify for social housing by giving them access to affordable secure rental accommodation. What are Dublin City Council's plans for the roll-out of affordable cost-rental? What is Dublin City Council doing or what can it do to accelerate delivery? O'Devaney Gardens in Dublin Central has planning permission for more than 1,000 units. That is a mixed development of social, affordable purchase and affordable cost-rental. Planning permission was granted many months ago. While Dublin City Council has delivered its first phase, construction has not commenced on the second phase, the bigger portion of that site. Similarly, St. Finbar's Court, St. Mary's Place in Dorset Street and Matt Talbot Court are all planned Dublin City Council developments. When will construction commence?

Mr. Owen Keegan

I will ask my colleague, Mr. O'Reilly, to respond in detail on some of the issues. On the resourcing issue, funding is available for all the resources we need to deliver the housing programme. However, housing is no different from other areas. It is proving very difficult for us to recruit and retain staff, particularly professional staff. Even though we have the sanction and the funding, in a very tight labour market, Dublin City Council is not the employer of choice because of uniform pay and conditions, much higher travelling costs and housing costs. It is a real challenge throughout my organisation to retain staff. That is just the nature of the market. We have the sanction we need and the funding. The problem is slightly different. I will ask my colleague to deal with some specific issues the Senator raised.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

I agree totally. The only way we can deal with homelessness and affordable housing is through the delivery of housing. The affordable cost-rental schemes have only really come on board in the last year or two. It will take us time. We have delivered 37 affordable homes this year, but it will take us time to deliver those other schemes. At the same time, last week we applied for planning permission for a development on Emmet Road, comprising 578 units with 70% cost-rental and 30% social housing. We recently achieved planning permission for affordable sale homes in Cherry Orchard and we are moving forward with affordable purchase homes in Ballymun. We will apply for planning permission for those in the coming months. It is obviously in our programme. As it was not what was requested of us in the letter, we did not include it in our response.

We have a strong programme. The caveat to that is that as affordability and affordable housing has become more of a focus, they will come on board in future years. It will be more towards the end of our Housing for All programme in 2024, 2025 or 2026 when we start to see more delivery. We are fully aware of the need to double the figures and we look at them constantly. We have the projects and the timelines, and we are committed to delivering them.

The judicial review process on O'Devaney Gardens was completed on 16 May 2022. We are extremely frustrated with the lack of progress on site and we are in constant engagement with the developers on the need to get started on site. We hope to have builders on site at St. Finbar's Court later this year or early next year. They are progressing. Progress in housing is slow. These are complicated processes for us to work through. The delivery of housing is not a simple thing to do. We fully recognise and accept the need people have, but unfortunately, we cannot meet that need in the short term. It will take us time to ramp up delivery. I hope I have answered all the questions.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I wish to acknowledge the very significant work they and their teams do, particularly in the housing and homelessness section. It is not lost on members of the committee that often that very significant work at the front line goes unacknowledged. I want to convey my thanks and my party's thanks to their staff.

I wish to discuss the targets. I will have a quick-fire round of questions for both Mr. Keegan and Mr. Curran. It is important to set both the social and affordable targets against the need. Part of the problem in discussing housing need is that they are not necessarily universally accepted. What is the gross current social housing need? That is the local authority list as well as the housing assistance payment, HAP, and rental accommodation scheme, RAS, transfer, and how that compares to the local authorities' targets.

For the affordable housing delivery, the local authorities were asked - it is in their housing delivery reports that I have here - to undertake housing needs demand assessment, HNDA, to determine the level of affordable need. For both local authorities, what was the HNDA and what are their targets?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

The Dublin City Council housing waiting list is 13,377. Our HAP transfer list is 10,670. Those are the figures in simple terms.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Homeless HAP would probably bring it up to about 25,000.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

No, that includes homeless HAP. It is 5,257 regular HAP and 5,413 homeless HAP.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The council's social housing target, between the builds and the buys, is about 9,000.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

Yes.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Does Mr. O'Reilly know roughly how many new households come onto the housing list each year? Obviously, it is not just about the total number of people who need housing now but also the emerging need. Is that a calculation the Department asks the council to factor in when working out the targets?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

Yes, that is factored into the overall housing need and demand assessment figure that is submitted to the Department.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Roughly what comes onto the list each year? I acknowledge it is difficult to say.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

I would be speculating, to be honest.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Would it be possible to get a figure? We have tried to get one from the Department and the Housing Agency previously but we have not been able to get it. I wonder whether it would be possible to circulate it to the committee at a later stage.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

It would be an easy figure to get. I do not have it with me today but I can get it for the committee.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Perfect. What about in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council?

Mr. Frank Curran

The number of households on the social housing waiting list is 3,744, of which 2,352 have Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown as their primary authority. The projected need for affordability is 3,124 for the period 2022 to 2026 and our estimated total affordable housing delivery is 1,549.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Would it be fair to say in the case of both councils that the targets that have been set will meet about half of the total current need but not take into account emerging need as we go? For Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, it is a little higher for social housing. If there are 25,000 households in need of social housing, and the target is higher than the 9,000 set by the Department, it will be significantly shy of the overall need.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

The other thing to realise is that this is a 2026 target and we are not going to address the full need in the five years. As we said, the target is challenging as it is. In the interim period, we will deliver that number and we will then continue into the future to deliver for the rest of the people. I accept that the short-term delivery number does not match the need but, as a longer term list, we are hopeful we can deliver into 2028 and 2029 and clear the overall waiting list.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Is there a possibility in either council that even with the delivery of those targets, challenging and all as they are, the gross need at the end of, say, 2026 could be similar to what it is now because the total number of people looking for social housing in both local authority areas is growing? Therefore, while something will be taken off the HAP transfer list, gross need could be not far off where it is today, even with those targets.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

From our point of view, it is a worry that the number of people coming in will match only the number of units being built. That is up to us and that is why we are significantly ramping up delivery to almost 10,000 units over that period. If we had delivered, over the past five years or the five years before that, what we plan to deliver over the next five years, we would be in a much better position than we are now. There is a commitment there and a significant number of units are coming on board. We know it will not solve all the problems of housing need from a social housing perspective, but it will allow us to begin to solve it.

Mr. Frank Curran

The housing list has come down significantly. I mentioned the figure 2,352 which was at about 5,000 a number of years ago. The list is coming down as delivery is ramped up. Moreover, I did not mention the housing assistance payment list, which stands at 1,574.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Would it be fair to say that in Mr. Curran's local authority, like in others, the list has come down almost in proportion to HAP going up and that there is a relationship between those two figures?

Mr. Frank Curran

There is still significant delivery planned for both direct-build and affordable housing. As I mentioned, on the build side, 1,459 are planned for the various types, such as local authority construction, turnkey, the capital assistance scheme, CAS, buy-and-renew and so on. On site at the moment, there are 676 units-----

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I accept that. I will ask my final question because I am almost out of time. On the affordable target for Dublin City Council, between it, the approved housing bodies and the LDA, the figure is 4,000 affordable homes to 2026, or 800 homes a year, although they will not get to them until 2024 or 2025. The figure for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is 1,549. Given the affordability challenges in both local authorities, will that come anywhere close to having an effect on the number of affordable homes that are needed? In both cases, the targets are significantly lower than the councils’ HNDA assessments. That is not a criticism, but it is a small number even if those targets are met. That is a fair assumption, is it not?

Mr. Owen Keegan

We accept it is a small number but we are starting from a base of zero. Rather than set a totally unrealistic target, I think it is better to set a target we believe we will achieve.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

It is less than the council's own housing needs demand assessment.

Mr. Owen Keegan

I think we would have to concede that.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

What about Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown?

Mr. Frank Curran

Again, we are starting into the affordability process. As I mentioned, the Shanganagh scheme, which is on site now, involves 200 social, 306 cost-rental and 94 affordable, while in Enniskerry Road, 50 cost-rental came through this year. Projects are coming through from the likes of the LDA and there is a strategic housing development, SHD, for the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum of 900 affordable units. The voluntary housing bodies are looking at credible opportunities, while the Land Development Agency, through Croí Cónaithe, is looking for various opportunities. We may well exceed the target and we will certainly try to do so but, as my colleagues have said, we need a realistic target.

There are people coming to us in the context of apartments that were originally intended for the private residential sector and asking whether there are possibilities with regard to social and affordable, whether through us, the approved housing bodies or the Land Development Agency. More opportunities may come down the track and if they do, we will be there to take them up. The affordable housing fund increased recently from €100,000 to €150,000 per unit and that makes a huge difference in the likes of Dún Laoghaire, where prices are higher. It will enable the cost-rental and affordable schemes to work in our area.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

I might add that there is also a market adjustment factor, which cost-rental and affordable delivery will have on the private delivery. We must not forget that it also has a significant factor and it adjusts private prices. If somebody can rent a cost-rental unit in Emmet Road for €1,100 or €1,200 a month, that will mean a load of people will leave private provision to try to go there. The reality is that it will adjust the overall market figure, and that market adjustment has to be borne in mind.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

We might get those figures from both local authorities on the emerging need on the list each year for the past few years.

Chairman

That would be helpful. We might include that in our request to the local authorities for further information.

Senator John Cummins

I thank our guests from both local authorities for attending. My first questions, relating to activating vacant properties, are for Mr. Curran and Mr. Keegan. How many units has their council delivered under the buy-and-renew scheme to date?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

We have brought back 48 units under the buy-and-renew scheme to date.

Senator John Cummins

What about Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown?

Mr. Frank Curran

As I mentioned, there are 12 vacant homes in Churchtown and a further eight in Deansgrange, although Ms Keenan might have an update on that. The total in recent years is 22.

Ms Catherine Keenan

The figure is five per year. Twenty are under repair-and-leasing.

Senator John Cummins

What are the councils' targets for the period 2022 to 2026?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

We have identified 650 properties with potential but we will have to carry out an assessment of them. We did 20 in 2022 and we hope to ramp that up with additional resources and try to get 60 across the line every year for the next five years. The activation of vacant properties is an extremely complex process.

Senator John Cummins

Are the 60 to which Mr. O'Reilly referred the target for buy-and-renew for the next four years?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

Yes.

Senator John Cummins

The council's housing delivery action plan referred to 97, so the actual figure in the background is much higher than the target in the plan, which is very good to hear. I ask the same question of Mr. Curran.

Ms Catherine Keenan

I might answer that. The figure is five per year.

Senator John Cummins

I saw that in the council's plan. Is that ambitious enough, notwithstanding the fact there is a low vacancy rate in the council's local authority area?

Ms Catherine Keenan

It is quite complex getting through either buy-and-renew or repair-and-leasing. A lot of work goes into it and it takes time.

Given the low rate that we have, we are unlikely to get any more. I recently had discussions with somebody who is proposing some more. We will take them.

Senator John Cummins

Very good.

Ms Catherine Keenan

At the moment, we have about five per year.

Senator John Cummins

That is good to hear. I am aware-----

Mr. Frank Curran

If we can exceed that target, we will. That is our intention. As I mentioned, we identified various estates that came to us and looked at them. We looked at options of living over the shop and so on. We have two successful exams-----

Senator John Cummins

If Mr. Curran does not mind, I have a follow-up question about over-the-shop accommodation if I have time. How many units have been delivered by both local authorities over the last number of years?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

Three.

Senator John Cummins

What about Dún Laoghaire?

Mr. Frank Curran

Two, with two others currently in the process.

Senator John Cummins

The local authority in my home, Waterford, has delivered 154 units, which is nearly 50% of the national total. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council received 45 applications, while Dublin City Council received 50 applications under the repair and lease scheme, but they were only able to bring two and three, respectively, to completion. Why is that the case?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

When many people who come to us hear the terms and conditions, they withdraw. It is market-led.

Senator John Cummins

These applications have been made.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

They withdraw after they come into the process. It just does not work for many people in Dublin city. There are higher costs. The €60,000 sometimes is not enough to get it across the line. The difference in rent, between the 80% reduction and the lease cost, is too high.

Senator John Cummins

Mr. O'Reilly is saying that of the 50 applications made, only three were followed through on, and the other 47 went away of their own accord. There were not any other issues such as the council deeming the area to be unsuitable. Were there no issues in that regard?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

We do not generally deem the area to be unsuitable, but I do not know the specifics of all 47 cases.

Senator John Cummins

We are not in a position to turn down properties that come forward from the private sector.

Mr. Frank Curran

We certainly do not turn them down. We will work through all of them. It is more difficult in Dublin because the €60,000 is not enough, in some cases, to bring the property up to standard.

Senator John Cummins

It is €60,000 per unit, so a property could contain multiple units, which makes this more attractive and more viable.

Mr. Frank Curran

There is also the matter of the rent that can be achieved. I will hand over to Ms Keenan. We go through every single application that we get. We advertise the scheme. Our staff are familiar with it and they will work through applications when they come in. As Mr. O'Reilly said, it is a market-led scheme. We receive applications, sit down and go through them. It is ultimately up to the applicants if they want to follow through or not.

Senator John Cummins

Has Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council had any issues with particular applications that have not been followed through on? Have there been issues with the locations of the property? Are there any such reasons for refusal?

Ms Catherine Keenan

No, that does not arise in any cases. That does not just apply to buy and renew or repair and lease schemes. When anybody comes to us with a property, we do not say that the location does not suit.

Senator John Cummins

I have two follow-up questions about delivery targets. Dublin City Council's targets for 2023 and 2024 are significantly below the target set by the Department. We have national targets but Dublin City Council has a large part to play in meeting those targets, given the volume of units to be delivered. Why are Dublin City Council's targets significantly below what the Department identified for it to deliver in 2023 and 2024?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

There is not yet on-site work on those units. The targets were set last year. Work that is currently happening on those sites has been in the stream for three or four years. It will take time to get those sites ready for delivery. We are aware. That is why we have an additional target, to make up numbers wherever we can under buy and renew or in other schemes. We currently have a call for turnkey delivery.

Senator John Cummins

I saw that. It is welcome.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

The end dates are the fourth quarter of 2022 and third quarter of 2023. That is for people who might have had deals in place in the private residential sector or such. We are aware of our targets. We manage the housing list. I manage homelessness. Not delivering houses is my headache as much as trying to deliver the houses. We are aware that we are below the target, but it is just to do with timelines and the time it takes to bring those into use.

Senator John Cummins

I appreciate that. My time is up. I might get a chance to speak in the third round.

Chairman

If we all stick to the allotted time, there will definitely be time in the third round.

Deputy Francis Noel Duffy

I thank the witnesses again, as I always do, and as most of us do. Their statements were insightful. I have a number of questions. I will see if I can get through all of them. Have the witnesses been approached by landlords wishing to sell properties with tenants in situ?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

Yes. We currently have 87 processes in train where tenants are in situ. Tenants being in situ is rarely as simple as it sounds. There can be issues with extensions, with building regulations in the property, title issues and encroachment issues. When anybody comes to us with tenants in situ, as I say to our councillors all the time, we are more than willing to look at it. In fairness to the Minister and the Department, they have given us the imprimatur to follow up on anything that comes through with tenants in situ. We will, because when people receive a notice of termination, they come through the front door of Parkgate Hall, seeking homelessness services, which is also our headache. We take tenants in situ at any opportunity we get.

Deputy Francis Noel Duffy

I thank Mr. O'Reilly. What about Dún Laoghaire?

Mr. Frank Curran

Properties are starting to come through with tenants in situ who have notices to quit. If there is a risk of homelessness, we are interested in finding a solution. We have to go through the process of valuations, inspections, title and so on, but properties are starting to come through. As Mr. O'Reilly said, I think they will be approved by the Department. There will be funding for them. It will be a focus between now and the end of the year.

Deputy Francis Noel Duffy

I thank Mr. Curran. I am interested in vacant units. I know a Senator already discussed it. There was a good scheme for over-the-shop units on Capel Street some years ago. Have the councils' vacant unit officers been assessing such units? Dublin and Dún Laoghaire probably have the largest number of vacant over-the-shop units. Are the councils' officers looking into that or assessing the potential?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

We have 650 potential units, including vacant premises over retail and commercial premises. We have identified those, as Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council did, through reports from Senators, Deputies, councillors, members of the public and surveys. The vacant homes website has been a significant asset to us too. We are assessing and going through them. In our statement, we said that delivery of over-the-shop units is more difficult. It entails fire regulations, multiple users and somebody running a retail premises below it. In many cases in Dublin city, there are not two access points. Access is through the shop. If the Deputy is familiar with shops on main streets, access is through the shop's front door. Shops would have people entering and exiting their homes through the shops. We will deliver anything that we can. We are taking these units on board and assessing them.

Mr. Frank Curran

We have work progressing on one site which was designed by our team of in-house architects. It will have a retail unit on the ground floor which will be available to rent. As Mr. O'Reilly said, one of the biggest issues is fire regulations and a separate means of access. It makes this difficult. Premises abroad, particularly in Europe, use sprinklers and similar systems, so particular means of access are not required. The County and City Management Association, CCMA, has a housing, building and land-use sub-committee, which asked the Department to look at the fire regulations to see if we can get more units to be compliant with them and to see if the regulations can be more realistic.

Deputy Francis Noel Duffy

I have two more quick questions. Have the local authorities been given cost-rental targets by the Department? Is it meeting these targets, considering the Covid pandemic and the Ukraine war?

If the local authorities have not been given targets, what process do they use to decide how many units they will develop? That is a kind of long-winded question.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

We have targets. At the moment, we have 1,802 affordable purchase and 2,514 cost-rental homes in our pipeline. The Deputy mentioned Covid-19 and Ukraine, both of which are the causes. The biggest worry issue for us around affordable delivery is construction inflation caused by both Covid-19 and Ukraine. As costs go up, therefore, it becomes more and more difficult for us to use the affordable housing fund to bring the cost down to make it affordable from a sale point of view or from a cost-rental point of view. That is the essence of the difficulty with affordable delivery for us.

Mr. Frank Curran

The target for affordable is combined affordable and cost rental. We have not broken it down specifically. We will see what comes in. I mentioned that Shanganagh is on-site with 306 cost-rental and 91 affordable homes. Enniskerry Road will have 50 cost-rental homes delivered this year. We will see what we get in the private market then through the cost rental equity loan, CREL, the LDA, and the turnkeys that come our way. It is a combined target for affordable and cost rental, however.

Deputy Francis Noel Duffy

My final question refers back to Deputy Ó Broin's with regard to the housing list versus targets. Does the capacity issue relate to funding or the targets the local authorities have been asked to deliver for the State? Do they just not have the capacity to deliver? That workload would be difficult to process. I am curious; if the Department told the local authorities to double their delivery, would that be possible?

Mr. Owen Keegan

It would certainly not be possible in the short term. We have a situation where, effectively, social housing delivery ceased as a consequence of the financial difficulties. Gearing up has taken time and it has not been helped by extensive Covid-19 lockdowns. We will certainly strive to exceed our targets but we must be realistic. Doubling them or unilaterally increasing them in my view will not work.

I cannot speak for Dún Laoghaire but in the cities, almost every site we have is now in the process and will contribute to that figure of 15,000 units. If somebody said we need 30,000 units, land acquisition becomes a big issue for us in terms of how we can, and where we want to, acquire it. At the moment, we have sites for those 15,000 units covering social, cost-rental and affordable purchase. Any increase on that will be difficult unless we buy in from the private sector, however, which is certainly a possibility. Land acquisition will become a constraining issue.

Chairman

Did Mr. Currran wish to come in on that question?

Mr. Frank Curran

Housing of All has set an overall target of 51,000 for 2022 to 2026. There are 27,600 houses in the delivery pipeline. That is divided among all the local authorities. I think our target is realistic. There are issues, however. I mentioned earlier that Covid-19 caused an issue with the supply chain and that there is a skill shortage. Apartments being slow to get off the ground is also a big issue that affects turnkey, matters relating to part V and approved housing body, AHB, delivery. There are, therefore, many issues in that regard.

Chairman

I thank Deputy Duffy. I will move on now to Senator Moynihan.

Senator Rebecca Moynihan

I thank everybody for coming in. I was watching the meeting from my office. I may, therefore, go over some questions others have asked, particularly with regard to some of the queries and figures about which Deputy Ó Broin asked.

I pay tribute to some of the staff I deal with in the housing section of DCC on a daily basis. Ms Aisling Browne in acquisitions helped me with a difficult query over the summer and went above and beyond what she needed to do and Mr. Tony Smithers and Ms Sandra Barry did likewise. Staff in the housing section work hard day in, day out, and have huge empathy for the people who bear the brunt of the housing crisis. I include Ms McNamara and Mr. O'Reilly in that as well. I passed Springvale today, for example, which is currently going up. That is a great example of DCC's direct-led delivery. Dolphin House is also an amazing example of good, well-planned delivery. I will come back to some of the delivery problems, however, shortly.

I want to come back to some of the questions Deputy Ó Broin asked in terms of what is planned and in the pipeline and how it is simply not meeting the targets. Another hidden part is the number of people on the transfer list within DCC who are housed through HAP and who are on the transfer list. We must take them into account. Many of them are in overcrowded housing and inappropriate accommodation in the insecure private rental sector. The witnesses do not have to have it with them today, but do they know how many council HAP tenancies have entered or are at risk of homelessness? How many of those have there been within the council over the past year? Of that number, how many tenant in situ purchases were there? Mr. O'Reilly said there are 87 but there are some issues with tenants in situ. I do not understand how people can be housed in the private sector in those houses, yet the alternative is for them to be homeless, even where there are issues. An issue was raised with me regarding an attic being converted and used as a bedroom. How can we achieve flexibly on that to stop people and families entering homelessness? That needs to be our big stop point.

I will come back to Dolphin House, which is an amazing development that has been social housing for a long time. Between 2018 and 2028, it looks like we are going to have 28 homes delivered in phase 1A and phase 1B, and 16 three-bedroom houses for senior citizens. That is 44 homes in ten years, which is simply not acceptable. That is a drop in the ocean.

I want to ask both local authorities this question. Local authority housing lists and income limits have not been revised since 2011. There is a pent-up demand of people who do not meet the social housing threshold, which is currently very low. Do the local authorities have any expectations that if that was raised to €40,000 or even €50,000 per household, of how many additional households would join the city council housing list? While the targets are all well and good to meet a low housing need that exists, as Deputy Fitzpatrick said, the reality is that many more people are caught in that affordability trap. They cannot afford to buy in places like Dublin city, and it blows my mind how expensive Dún Laoghaire is. People cannot afford to buy in places like that yet they do not qualify. Crucially, however, they also do not qualify for HAP and supported housing, which is one of the big and important issues. It has been ten years since they qualified.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

The Senator voted for cost rental.

Senator Rebecca Moynihan

I did vote for cost rental. I voted for the affordable housing measures.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

I thank the Senator. To go through it again, our total housing list is 13,377 and our HAP transfer list is 10,670. Our internal transfers number 6,000 but those people have a home. If they vacate a home, somebody else will get it. It is not, therefore, a direct housing need.

Senator Rebecca Moynihan

Many of them are on HAP.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

No, there are 10,670 on HAP-----

Senator Rebecca Moynihan

Okay, I am sorry.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

-----and then there are another 6,000 who have local authority social housing and who are looking to transfer.

In essence, on the question around tenants in situ, the problem for us is that we cannot buy somebody else's problem. For instance, with an attic conversion that does not meet building regulations or fire regulations, it is difficult for us to purchase that property and then say we are very happy for a social housing tenant to live in that property.

How the HAP system works is that people rent on the private market. There may be a requirement for a private rented inspection, if the tenant requires it, or people like environmental health officers go out and inspect and then give recommendation notices. The other issue with a tenant in situ is that sometimes the landlord does not wish to sell to the local authority. Another issue is encroachment or irregular title whereby the title of the land on which the house is built is not properly registered, which is very difficult.

I fully understand because as I said, when those people end up in homelessness, they come in through the front door of Parkgate Hall and they are our issue. From our point of view, however, we also cannot buy other people's problems and create more difficulty for ourselves or leave people in a situation we know to be unsafe. I fully understand the frustration with Dolphin House.

There is potential for 500 units at the site. A significant number of environmental impact assessment reports must be done. We are looking to expedite this process.

With regard to the timeline, the local community asked us for an honest assessment of what would be delivered. We were not going to over-promise and under-deliver. We tried to give people a realistic timeframe. I accept that it is a long time. We will do what we can to expedite it.

Mr. Frank Curran

The housing waiting list in Dún Laoghaire is 3,744, and 2,352 people have Dún Laoghaire as their primary authority. The number on the housing assistance payment transfer list is 1,574. Our target is to deliver 1,994 and our projection is 2,318. The Department is looking at income limits. It is out of our control because it is a national issue. What is available once people go over the limit is cost-rental. We will prioritise cost-rental over the coming years.

Senator Victor Boyhan

I thank the two chief executives and their teams for coming before the committee today. Most of them are no strangers to me. They are welcome. I always make the point that witnesses before the committee are our guests. They have been invited here as part of a process of engagement. I acknowledge this and thank them for coming.

My questions will focus on Dublin City Council. I thank Mr. Keegan for his concise paper. I have a number of questions arising from it. How many people are on the social housing list today? It is difficult to get details on this. I want to spend the rest of my time focusing on vacancy and dereliction. This is referenced in the fourth paragraph of the written submission to the committee. Does Mr. Keegan believe that local authorities should have powers, or additional powers, to deal with long-term vacant housing units that are neither derelict nor a site? If so, will he elaborate? I am picking up this point from what is in the submission and what has been said.

We know that various interventions are available to deal with vacancy and dereliction. There is the repair-and-lease scheme, the buy-and-renew scheme and the Living City initiative. All of these provide support for citizens. More importantly, they provide supports for local authorities in bringing derelict and vacant sites back into use. Mr. Keegan stated that in the past the buy-and-renew scheme proved the most popular and effective. He also stated that there are problems due to delays in the recouping of the capital outlays associated with the Living City initiative and the repair-and-lease scheme. Will he give the committee some examples of the issues he has identified with the two schemes?

The use of vacant commercial and retail units for housing has been investigated by Dublin City Council. These conversions can create major difficulties with regard to planning, retrospective issues and compliance with building regulations. Will the witnesses from Dublin City Council touch on this and suggest to the committee how we can overcome these challenges?

According to the submission document Dublin City Council has identified approximately 650 vacant homes with potential for redevelopment and to date 48 have been redeveloped and returned to use. I would like more detail on how the figure of 650 was arrived at. Are any of the properties in the ownership of Dublin City Council? I do not have the exact number but I am told that a number of derelict properties are in the ownership of Dublin City Council. I am not sure whether they are on the derelict sites register. Will the witnesses confirm this?

When we look at the audited reports of all 31 local authorities, we see constant criticism of how the property assets register balances. In addition, there are issues about how local authorities handle their commercial and residential real estate. According to Dublin City Council, it has 77 sites on the derelict sites register. Do any of the properties belong to Dublin City Council? What action is it taking? I would have thought it would be a key priority for a local authority if it had derelict properties. These are just a few questions that might be addressed. They are specifically focused and targeted towards Dublin City Council.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

I thank the Senator. The number of people on our housing list is 13,377. Vacancy comes up constantly. I get asked about it every month at the council meetings. It is an emotive topic. It drives people crazy to go by vacant homes and see them sitting there. Sometimes people take an overly simplistic view of how easy it is to bring them back into use by putting in new windows and kitchens in order that people can live in them. Much of what Dublin City Council ends up dealing with is more complex.

What the Senator is asking about is the powers local authorities have. It really is a matter for local government. The new vacant site tax introduced in the budget is certainly a stick that might encourage people. We also need to look at some of the reasons properties are vacant. We have done research on this. There may be unclear title, ownership disputes or wards of court involved. A property might be for sale. The owner might be in long-term healthcare. The owner might not be able to afford to bring the property up to building standards. It may be a second property for temporary use. It may be an investment property. All of these reasons need different carrots and sticks to get people to activate them. Each reason for vacancy would probably need a different action.

We have brought forward 48 buy and renew properties to date. Under the Living City initiative, we have received 108 applications in the context of owner-occupiers and 77 for rental residential. We have certified 61 for owner-occupiers, which is just over 60%. We have also brought forward 44 rental residential, which is 60%. The point with regard to the Living City initiative is that it involves a tax rebate over ten years. People must have the capital to be able to do it. The change in the budget will make it a little bit more attractive.

Senator Victor Boyhan

I do not mean to be rude and cut in on Mr. O'Reilly, and that answer is perfect, but I am conscious of time.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

I apologise.

Senator Victor Boyhan

No, it is my fault as much as Mr. O'Reilly's. There are 650 vacant homes with the potential for redevelopment. Will Mr. O'Reilly tell us about them? How was the figure of 650 arrived at?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

There are 650 units with potential. This figure has been arrived at through reports from Deputies, Senator and councillors, members of the public phoning our customer service and surveys conducted by our local area staff. We have a very good local area structure. We have also received referrals from the vacanthomes.ie website run by Mayo County Council. Members of the public upload information to the website and we get referrals from it. The Senator asked about derelict units and whether they are ours. Some of the units on the derelict sites register are ours but that is only because we put them on it. We used compulsory purchase orders and now we must renew them.

Senator Victor Boyhan

How many of these are there?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

There are 18.

Senator Victor Boyhan

There are 18 derelict units in the ownership of Dublin City Council.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

Yes.

Ms Helen McNamara

Through compulsory purchase orders.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

We brought them into our ownership to fix the problem. They were not in our ownership when they went into dereliction.

Ms Helen McNamara

Of these 11 were acquired in 2022.

Senator Victor Boyhan

Are there any historically derelict sites that have been in the ownership of Dublin City Council for some time?

Ms Helen McNamara

No, not on the register.

Senator Victor Boyhan

That was a different question. I did not ask whether they were on the register; I asked whether there are derelict sites in the ownership of Dublin City Council. We know some local authorities do not have their derelict sites on the register. This is one of the problems.

Ms Helen McNamara

Any sites that we are aware are derelict we try to redevelop through urban regeneration processes. We do not keep them derelict without intent to have them redeveloped.

Senator Victor Boyhan

To keep focus and clarity, Dublin City Council does not own any derelict site at present.

Ms Helen McNamara

There are the 18 that are on the register.

Senator Victor Boyhan

Other than these 18.

Ms Helen McNamara

Not that I am aware of.

Senator Rebecca Moynihan

There are others that have been derelict longer. I can think of several.

Senator Victor Boyhan

We need to get a handle on the number.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

They are intended for regeneration. That is a different thing.

Senator Rebecca Moynihan

Dolphin's Barn.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

Again, they are intended for regeneration.

Senator Rebecca Moynihan

No, the corner of-----

Chairman

Can we stick to the speaker please?

Senator Victor Boyhan

I thank the Chair.

Chairman

We are out of time, so we must move on now. I appreciate that everybody is keeping to time and it is very helpful. We will come back around for another question.

Deputy Emer Higgins

I thank the witnesses for coming before the committee. I thank the teams who are at the coalface of the crisis. They are doing great work. We know more has to be done as quickly as humanly possible.

I thank the witnesses because I know many people put a lot of time, effort and expertise into this area. I have four questions for both of the witnesses and then one for each council. I would like both witnesses to talk us through the affordable housing pipeline and what balance they aim to strike in terms of cost rental and affordable purchase.

In terms of voids, are the councils utilising the full budget and what is the average turnaround time? I think somebody else touched on this earlier. How many new staff have the councils taken in under the Housing for All allocation? They would have got approval to hire planning staff and inter-housing delivery teams.

I would also welcome a comment on an article today in The Irish Times about an unwillingness among developers to collaborate with local authorities when it comes to public housing. Do the witnesses find any particular roadblocks in that regard? I know the expressions of interest do not necessarily materialise.

The overall figure for Dublin City Council is 15,000. Could I get a breakdown of that by year? I note the reference made to the accessible homes being delivered in a scheme in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. That is very important. Is there any information on the number of people on waiting lists who require accessible homes? Is information available on whether people who are on the waiting lists are in hospital or in rehabilitation and are waiting for accessible homes to be made available, either through the AHBs or the council? There are five questions for each of the witnesses. Five minutes should be okay time-wise.

Mr. Frank Curran

The affordable housing pipeline we mentioned earlier was 1,549. That is comprised of 207 local authority build affordable purchase; 636 local authority turnkey affordable purchase; 306 local authority cost rental; 302 AHB cost rental-----

Deputy Emer Higgins

I am sorry, but could it be broken down by year?

Mr. Frank Curran

By year, it is 134 in 2022, 284 in 2023, 392 in 2024, 401 in 2025 and 338 in 2026. That is the pipeline through the various different delivery mechanisms I mentioned. We are making a pretty good start with the likes of the site in Shanganagh, the cost rental that came through on the Enniskerry Road, and the level of interest we are getting in terms of Part V as well.

Deputy Emer Higgins

I thank Mr. Curran for the breakdown in terms of affordable build and turnkey affordable purchase. That is very helpful. What about voids and staff?

Mr. Frank Curran

We got approval for eight extra professional staff for the social housing programme. We applied for six staff for the affordable housing programme. We are waiting on approval for that, which we expect to get.

We have gone through the recruitment process. It is challenging to get professional staff at the moment, in particular quantity surveyors, architects and planners. There is a lot of competition. Between the four local authorities in the Dublin region, An Bord Pleanála and the Office of the Planning Regulator, OPR, there is a problem finding planners. Builders and architectural firms are looking for quantity surveyors. It is difficult and challenging. We have a good core staff. We have taken on three or four in recent months, competitions are ongoing and interviews are taking place.

Deputy Emer Higgins

What about the budget for voids and turnaround times?

Mr. Frank Curran

I will ask my colleague to respond.

Ms Catherine Keenan

We are one of the best in terms of turnaround times but, unfortunately, that has extended now to about 20 weeks. That is due to Covid and contractors perhaps not competing or supply chain issues, but we hope to get back to where we were before. We are usually in a good place.

Deputy Emer Higgins

Is the council drawing down the full budget each year?

Ms Catherine Keenan

Yes.

Deputy Emer Higgins

Is there any comment on today's article in The Irish Times about the lack of interest from developers for collaboration on public sites?

Mr. Frank Curran

I mentioned earlier that, going back a year or two when we looked for turnkey developments, many of the apartments were destined for the private rented sector, PRS, market. Contracts were signed and it was not feasible because we were not getting much interest in terms of affordable or turnkey social. That seems to be changing now. People are more interested in coming in to us, so there are opportunities for social turnkey, affordable turnkey for the LDA in particular and the approved housing bodies. Those opportunities are coming through now.

Deputy Emer Higgins

What about Dublin city?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

I do not have the figures on affordable housing by year but I can circulate it later. The pipeline for affordable purchase is 1,802 and cost rental is 2,514.

In terms of voids, we are probably at about 16 weeks at this stage. We currently have 505 voids, which is 1.9% of our overall stock. That sounds like a lot, but out of an overall stock of 26,000 it is relatively low. We do have a lot of churn in our system. Some 245 of the voids are currently with contractors and 128 are with our own direct labour. We are hopeful of bringing a lot of those back in before Christmas. We are drawing down all the budget and any extra budget is always helpful. I might as well say that while I am here.

In terms of new staff, we have taken on eight what we are calling housing delivery managers. They are programme managers who will deal with a lot of the paperwork, process and decision-making and put it all into a format so that we can streamline our housing delivery processes. We have eight coming in to assist with the delivery of affordable housing.

The article in The Irish Times is probably based on our competitive dialogue process. We were very disappointed. At this stage, I think we have nearly 21,000 inactivated planning permissions in Dublin city. We saw that as an opportunity. We tried to work out how we could unlock this conundrum of why there are people who have invested in planning permission but they are not delivering homes. We have to work out what the barrier is. We went out. We had 44 expressions of interest and we only had one submission. We are out again now looking for turnkey delivery and we are hopeful to go out again to look for a development agreement with people to deliver on our behalf in the near future. That is a conundrum we have to work out. As interest rates start to go up, there might be more opportunity if people who have leveraged themselves, who have borrowed money to purchase the land and for the planning, come under more pressure and that might create opportunity. It is incumbent on us as local authority officials to continue to go back to that market, engage with it, try to unlock the conundrum and create opportunities for people to come in to us and see if they will partner with us for the delivery of homes.

Deputy Emer Higgins

I asked that question because I did not see it in the opening statement, although Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown had it covered. What is the breakdown by year of the 15,000 overall housing target under Housing for All? Could the information be provided to us, including the build out of affordable?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

We can provide the Deputy with the breakdown by year. That is no problem.

Deputy Thomas Gould

I thank the witnesses for being here today. I have just a few quick-fire questions because there are a few issues I want to address. The first question is whether both local authorities believe they will meet their social, affordable and affordable cost rental targets for this year?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

As it currently stands, we are in a position to meet our social housing targets for this year.

Mr. Frank Curran

In the current year we will be shy of our social housing targets but next year we will exceed our targets. Some of our schemes have gone into next year for various reasons. There have been various challenges in recent years, some of which I mentioned, in terms of Covid, the supply chain and skill shortages. In terms of some of the turnkeys and Part Vs, we will be shy of our target this year but we will make it up next year.

Deputy Thomas Gould

Is it 5%, 10% or 20%? What is it roughly speaking?

Mr. Frank Curran

For 2022 our target was 450 and to date we have delivered 154. We are projecting 102. There is a shortfall of 194. Next year, our target is 364. We are projecting 454 minimum, and it may be higher. There is a surplus for next year of 89.

Deputy Thomas Gould

We are looking at probably a 60% delivery, roughly speaking, of what was estimated. Is that correct?

Mr. Frank Curran

As I say, a lot of it was turnkey, so there are Part Vs and approved housing turnkey. Because of the private sector and the pace of development, they are not coming through now but they will come through next year.

Deputy Thomas Gould

That ties into my next question. With a lot of the projects in both witnesses' local authorities there are now much more, larger, more complicated projects where there is a mixture of tenure types. It just seems, however, that delivery is very slow. Earlier in the year a report was carried out about having maybe one single point of contact in the Department when trying to get these projects delivered in a timely fashion. What is the hold-up? Is it bureaucracy? Is it because the local authorities are dealing with mixed-tenure sites? What can we do, or what can the Department and the Minister do, to help deliver these projects more quickly?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

A lot of the sites, certainly those in Dublin city, are larger and more complex and are apartments, so it is a matter of the complexity of delivery. In recent times I have been engaging with a private developer on Part V in the north city. The developer was very happy to be able to deliver 400-odd apartments in three years and seven months from planning through to completion. We have to remember that the delivery of apartments is a long and complex process. That private developer did not have to go through all the process we have to go through with regard to the four-stage process, business plans, feasibility studies and procurement. I understand the frustration - the frustration is ours as well - but these projects do take a lot of time, and apartment complexes are particularly complex to deliver. The number of things that can go wrong is also much higher when delivering apartment complexes rather than houses.

Deputy Thomas Gould

Is there a way to streamline things? Are there actions the Department could take to help? I understand that these are really complex, major developments, but we need housing delivered. My disagreement with the Minister all the time is that, while we can talk about planned housing and commencements, delivery is the key. What can the Minister or the Department do to get these developments delivered as quickly as possible?

Mr. Owen Keegan

In fairness, the Department has been very supportive. What has really held us up is two lockdown periods, which have caused real difficulties with our delivery. There are other market realities we have to acknowledge. As a consequence of Covid and building inflation, we are getting very little interest, much less interest, in our developments. It is a matter of trying to interest contractors to take on this work and, once they get the tenders, to get them to start. There are factors like that. This is as much a challenge to us as it is to the Department.

Deputy Thomas Gould

Is Mr. Keegan saying there is nothing that can be done by the Department or the Minister to help speed things up?

Mr. Owen Keegan

I am not saying there is nothing to be done but I think-----

Deputy Thomas Gould

I am asking a straight question. I do not mean to badger. This is the housing committee. We have input into the Minister and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. What can be done to help speed things up? Does Mr. Curran wish to respond?

Mr. Frank Curran

Again, we have to comply with the public spending code. Every public sector project does. It has been very helpful that we have got approval for extra staff. I know there are challenges in recruiting, but we are getting there. We have got the staff up to speed now. Something that we will need to look at and on which the Department can help is acquisition of land into the future. We need to plan now for the next seven-year to ten-year period, go out there and buy land. Traditionally, when local authorities buy land, which is very expensive in the likes of Dún Laoghaire, we get recoupment only when the houses, the units, are complete. If we could buy land and bring that recoupment of the money back earlier in the five-stage process, that would help in that we would have a supply of land and then could plan the infrastructure into the future.

Deputy Thomas Gould

I have a couple of brief questions remaining. Vacant homes officers are like sites officers. Was it Mr. Keegan who made the point earlier about having additional staff? As for vacancy and dereliction, in my constituency of Cork North-Central and Cork city and county we have 7,000 vacant properties. In the areas I represent there are 20, 30 or 40 buildings, former homes, lying idle. Even from an environmental point of view, it is a matter of delivering housing that is already built. I do not think the staff are there. We need teams, not an individual or a part-time officer. How many full-time vacant homes and derelict sites officers have the local authorities now to deal with those sites?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

We have one vacant homes officer. We have six working in the unit, but they also draw on the significant resources we have internally within city architects and city quantity surveyors, so our city architects division does not work on one project but on many projects all at the one time.

Deputy Thomas Gould

Does Mr. Curran wish to comment?

Mr. Frank Curran

We have the vacant homes officer, which is very helpful, because they have identified 77 possible vacant properties through the various GeoDirectory data searches etc. A lot of the properties will be too big or too expensive, there will be probate issues or legal issues, the owner will be in hospital etc. The advantage of having the full-time officer is that they can sift through all that. They have identified eight properties that are of active interest and are being pursued at the moment, so it has been very helpful to have somebody working full-time on that.

Deputy Thomas Gould

If the local authorities had additional staff, would they help to deliver more units? As Mr. Curran said, this is quite complicated, with the titles, people being sick and not knowing who owns the property. If the local authorities had a team working on that, would it speed it up?

My last question - I thank the Chair for his leniency - is about when people go into rehab and are taken off or suspended from the social housing list. I have seen that in some local authorities. Does that happen in the witnesses' local authorities? If a person goes into residential rehab, let us say for six months, is he or she taken off the social housing list?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

Not that I am aware of, no.

Mr. Frank Curran

Not that I am aware of either.

One vacant homes officer is probably adequate for what we have at the moment because our vacancy rate is so low. If we had extra staff, we would probably look at following through on that, acquiring the properties, the design process, getting the scheme on site etc.

We have a property management section working through dereliction. It has made great progress in recent years. The number on the register has gone down from 22 to ten, with a significant increase in the amount we collect in levies. That section works through each and every one of those properties. Three have recently been sold. Works will start immediately to render two of them non-derelict. Planning permission has been applied for in respect of two of them. That property management section has helped with dereliction.

Deputy Thomas Gould

I thank the witnesses.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

I will try to avoid the trap some of the previous speakers have fallen into in directing questions to the manager. We all have the habit of calling Mr. Keegan the manager. It shows the length of time some of us have been on local authorities. Some of us have come from local authorities in just the last Dáil term.

The pipeline both local authorities have put in front of us is interesting. There is often a suggestion that nothing has changed in terms of housing. Three or four of us here left local authorities at the beginning of the Dáil term. For both pipelines there was no legislative basis for anything other than social housing. All of the pipelines now involve mixed income and mixed tenure. There was nothing approaching the instruments for dereliction and, with the speed and the multi-annual budget that is there with Housing for All, they are all now in place. It is very obvious when we look at the list the witnesses have presented to us that that is having an impact. It is hard to see it yet at the stage where people are putting keys in their doors, but I looked at the latest Dublin City Council list for my area, Dublin North-West, and there are 29 different sites across my very small three-seat constituency. It is worth reflecting on them. We have Kildonan; the Church of the Annunciation; Carton; local area plan, LAP, sites 13, 8, 11, 9, 5, 15, 16, 17 and 18; Barry Avenue; Meadow Court; Wellmount Road; Balbutcher, site 14; LAP sites 21, 22, 23 and 25; High Park; Prospect Hill; Hampton Wood; Collins Avenue; Thatch Road; LAP site 19; Casement Drive; Casement Road; Barnamore; Berryfield; LAP 10; Collins Avenue; and Oscar Traynor Road. Anyone who says local authorities are not back in the business of building housing is just not looking at the reality. The question the previous speaker posed was if the local authorities will be able to deliver in a timely manner. That is the concern I have now. It falls into two areas.

I will first deal with staffing. The number of additional staff both local authorities have got is a bit underwhelming. I note Mr. Keegan's wording, that they have all the sanction for what they want. Should the witnesses be looking for more staffing for both local authorities? Considering even just all those sites I listed, the idea that 16 or 20 staff would be enough to help the local authorities with that seems on the low side. Am I wrong?

Mr. Owen Keegan

My point is that we are having difficulty in Dublin City Council just keeping the staff we have.

We welcome funding and sanctions for more staff but to be honest we would like to just keep the staff we have. I was asked if there is one thing that would help. One flexibility we had in the past is that when we were recruiting people from outside, particularly professional staff, we could give them incremental credit for years of service. Back in about 2014 we lost that power so if someone comes in from the outside they go right back to the start of the scale. We are very uncompetitive, therefore. We set up panels now and we get high refusal rates. We are running competitions-----

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

That is useful and Mr. Keegan is talking about retention but I want to ask about sanctioned posts between both local authorities. No more than 20 staff have been requested between them. Is that fair?

Mr. Frank Curran

That is on top of a significant staff that is in place already. We have a big enough architect section that is constantly working on designing schemes. We then have a housing section with technical people. When the scheme came out it was for what is needed over and above that, and that is fully funded, but we still have all our previous staff in place.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

Mr. Curran believes that DLRCC has the staff resources in place and it is about filling and recruiting for those posts now?

Mr. Frank Curran

If we can backfill all the posts that people have left and get the extra posts filled we will have sufficient staff to deliver.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

The other thing to be aware of is that the process for social housing delivery has changed significantly. We procure integrated design teams that would have quantity surveyors and architects on them to design and manage those projects for us. The days of local authority architects and quantity surveyors holding the pen on every single project are more or less gone. The other thing to look at is that the processes we use and how we do it is also much more efficient than it was in the past.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

I will turn to the affordable models we use, particularly the council-led affordable purchase model. There are many people out there who just do not understand how that works. From an empty site to the point where somebody would purchase an affordable home, what is the financial calculation for a local authority in doing that? Where is the money coming from and what is the final input into the final price?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

You have land, the design phase, the professional phase and the construction costs. I said earlier that the fundamental worry for us is construction cost inflation. The point I have been making to some people in recent days is that what used to cost €300,000 now costs €400,000 and what used to cost €400,000 now costs €530,000. It is difficult for local authorities to make that work, with the affordable housing fund, to what people deem to be affordable. A lot of times in people's consciousness the figure for an affordable three- or four-bedroom house would be between €200,000 and €300,000. It will be difficult from DCC's perspective to deliver three-bedroom homes at those sort of prices.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

On St. Joseph's Hill or Balbutcher, which are sites I mentioned, DCC will be selling houses at below the cost of construction? If the cost comes in at €400,000, DCC will be selling them, with the affordable housing fund, at €300,000. Is DCC's concern how much it can procure houses for, even before the higher discount?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

My concern is the ability of the end purchaser to purchase that as an affordable unit. There is a significant gap between what one would have to be earning to purchase that at €300,000 and the €38,000 social housing income limit. There is an affordability gap there.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

That is even with the State subsidising the costs by €100,000.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

It is. We have to look at our construction methodologies and how we do it. We have to see if we can improve those methodologies, make it cheaper, absorb some of the land costs and things like that, and some of the land has already been acquired. It is very difficult and as construction inflation continues to rise it continues to be difficult and it becomes more difficult.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

I ask Mr. Curran to respond to that point on affordable purchase because we have not focused on it yet.

Mr. Frank Curran

The affordable purchase fund has increased from €100,000 to €150,000 and that was a help because it is getting challenging. As Mr. O'Reilly says, if we are delivering something that will cost €450,000 because of the increase in prices and all the associated costs, bringing it down to €300,000 helps. That extra increase is a help.

Mr. Owen Keegan

Some years we have reverted to building houses. We should be building properties everywhere. It is difficult to make it stack up with apartments in DCC's area. In Ballyfermot we built houses. A lot of the criticism is that we should not be building houses these days, given the proximity to public transport and the need for densification. It would not have added up had we built apartments so it is a real challenge.

Chairman

I want to go back to the vacancy and dereliction question. Something that has been spoken about for decades is living over the shop becoming popular again. It is not that simple and it is complex, which we all acknowledge. For many years we were able to spread out greenfield site after greenfield site and sprawl with new builds and it was so much easier to do, and it still is. We have this imperative of carbon emissions as well, which means we have to focus and concentrate on the existing stock and the infill and densification of those sites. I refer to vacancy and vacant homes officers and I am glad to hear that both local authorities have full-time vacant homes officers. I am aware that some local authorities do not but they have all been given sanction and funding to do so. I am sure one finds out about vacant properties from various sources. The councillors report it, there is the www.vacanthomes.ie website and there is local knowledge. When the vacant homes officer comes up against the obstacle that a house is vacant for a certain reason is it then crossed off the list or is there an opportunity to go further to engage with the owner and ask if they can assist? Is there a reach out to bring people in?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

It goes back to the complexity of the process. You get a call that No. 1 The Orchard is vacant, you send somebody out to inspect it and they find out it is vacant. Then it goes on the to-do list so that it will be looked at. You go out again and do a title search to see who owns the property. You try to engage with that person and if they are willing to engage that is great and if they are not then you start writing letters to people. You have to do a number of inspections and from our point of view a property has to be vacant for over six months before we start to do that. This example is not a derelict property; it is a vacant one. It is about engaging with the individual but if people do not want to engage or if there is a contested title it is complex. It is a long process.

Chairman

Has DCC compulsorily purchased any vacant homes?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

We have compulsorily purchased derelict homes.

Chairman

Has DCC compulsorily purchased any vacant homes?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

No.

Chairman

Has DLRCC been able to compulsorily purchase any vacant homes?

Mr. Frank Curran

No. There is an issue around property rights and you have to do a lot of research. Some of these properties are too big and expensive. There are probate issues, there are people in hospital and there are legal issues etc. All of that has to be investigated. If something is viable the vacant homes officer can make contact with the owner and there are opportunities around buying, renewing, repairing and leasing etc. and that would be explored.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

I want to make a point of clarification. If a property is derelict it is vacant-----

Mr. Frank Curran

Dereliction is different-----

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

-----and DCC has compulsorily purchased derelict buildings so it has compulsorily purchased vacant properties.

Chairman

I will move on to dereliction in a minute but I want to stick to vacancy because we are introducing a vacant homes tax and a vacant home is not necessarily a derelict site. There is a lot of confusion among dereliction, vacant homes, vacant sites and derelict sites. We need clarity on that, including to assist the local authorities. There is a vacant homes tax; it is self-declared that the house is vacant and it is based on the local property tax returns. In that situation would compulsory purchase rights to that vacant home be of assistance?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

It would have to be handled in primary legislation if it is proposed to compulsorily purchase people's private property. If it is a vacant home that is structurally sound and has doors and windows it is an option. It is above my paygrade but the reality is that people have constitutional property rights so if you go around-----

Chairman

I just wanted to get it out there clearly that if a house is vacant you cannot just go in and put a compulsory purchase order on it. There are issues with it and that is something we need to address as legislators.

There is a derelict sites register in all local authorities and then there is a derelict sites levy but there is an appalling collection rate on that of less than 10% across local authorities. If that was a derelict sites tax would that be a better solution?

Mr. Owen Keegan

To be clear, the collection rate is not heroic but the outstanding charge is registered as a charge on the property, so we collect it eventually. In some of those, there is nobody to pay.

Chairman

If the council collects it at the end point when it is being sold, there is very little incentive for anybody to do anything. They are just sitting on a derelict site and it can sit there and have a real impact on the local area.

Ms Helen McNamara

We would look to purchase it compulsorily. In the city council we have over 400 active cases but, on average, there are 20 or so a year that go on the derelict sites register. That is because there has been huge success in engagement with the owners and getting them to do the works so they do not need to go on the register.

Chairman

To do the works can take that detrimental look off it but it does not necessarily bring it back into use. If the council boards up the windows and paints flowers on it, it does not look derelict anymore, but-----

Ms Helen McNamara

We are a lot more specific than that. Generally, if people incur costs, they want to recoup those costs and that is usually by putting it back on the market or putting it into use.

Chairman

Does Ms McNamara think a tax would be better than a levy, if the tax was collected by Revenue? If the council was to submit its derelict sites list and Revenue was then to chase the collection, would that return a higher amount?

Ms Helen McNamara

The point the manager was making was that the people we are dealing with - those who actually own those properties that have become derelict - often do not have the means to pay a tax or a levy. We may run into the same situation in going from a levy to a tax but when compared to the vacant sites, the owners tend to be in a different category.

Chairman

Again, the vacant homes tax was introduced not as a revenue-raising tool but as an activation tool. If there was a derelict sites tax, would that act as a stronger activation measure, where someone would say that, as there is a tax and it is going to be collected by Revenue, “I will try to sell it or refurbish it”, or “I will reach out to the local authority rather than have them chase me”?

Ms Helen McNamara

It will work for maybe a small minority but, generally speaking, the owners of those derelict properties either do not have title or do not have the wherewithal to pay. Over the years, we have gone into the District Court and cases were lost because they were able to prove they just do not have the means, or their representatives were able to show they were not capable of doing the works. That is why it was left to be a charge on the land. It is registered in the Property Registration Authority as a charge on the land and it comes through when the property goes for sale. The compulsory purchase acquisition of those derelict properties has worked quite well for those properties because we can turn them over and hand them over for housing, and it takes out those issues of there being title difficulties because it is a freehold title that will vest in the council, so that deals with it well.

Chairman

My time is up. I call Senator Boyhan in the Independent slot, to be followed by Senator Fitzpatrick for Fianna Fáil. The third Fine Gael slot will be shared. I then have Deputy Ó Broin to come back in, followed by Deputy Boyd Barrett, and Senator Cummins wishes to come in for a third round. I call Senator Boyhan.

Senator Victor Boyhan

I want to focus on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. From the outset, I wish the council well in its partnership with the Land Development Agency at Shanganagh Castle. I thought we might be there yesterday but that was cancelled, as the witnesses know. I am glad to see, because I have gone out on the site, that construction has actually started. I wish the council well. It has been a long time coming and it is great to see construction on the ground.

There are three or four points. Mr. Curran spoke about the council being shy of its social housing delivery targets for this year. I did not take down the figure. What was the target and how shy was the council in numbers of residential units rather than percentages?

Mr. Frank Curran

The target is 450, delivery is 154, projected is 102 and the shortfall is 194.

Senator Victor Boyhan

Therefore, 154 is what has been delivered. In terms of derelict site properties, I think I am right in saying that the council had identified 77 properties.

Mr. Frank Curran

That was for vacant sites.

Senator Victor Boyhan

In terms of vacant sites or derelict properties, the council is obliged to keep a register. Are any of those properties or sites in the ownership of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council? If so, how many?

Mr. Frank Curran

We would be very proactive in terms of bringing our own sites back into use and identifying them for housing and other purposes. The derelict sites register currently has ten properties. A big effort has been put in since the end of 2019, when there were 22 such sites. A team was put in place to deal with this and of those ten, none of which is a local authority property, three have recently been sold and we expect works to start shortly, two have applied for planning permission, and one is a hardship case and we are working with the HSE in that regard. In addition, the team has been very successful in collecting levies and issuing notices, in many cases multiple notices. During the period I mentioned, and in 2020 and 2021 in particular, the council obtained more in levies than in the previous ten years, some €77,000 in 2021 and €171,000 in 2020.

Senator Victor Boyhan

The council is doing a great job.

Mr. Frank Curran

It is proactive but there is a lot of work that goes into dealing with those derelict sites.

Senator Victor Boyhan

I will move on. I live in Dún Laoghaire and I am very aware of that area, although I am not taking anyone on a trip of the geography of Dún Laoghaire. I would be very familiar with properties that are empty and that are in the ownership of the council and, indeed, I walked around outside a few of them recently. The council has empty properties in the town of Dún Laoghaire. What are its plans in terms of putting them into residential use or finding a use for them? They are the property of the local authority and they are empty. Where are they coming up on the radar?

Mr. Frank Curran

I mentioned one scheme that we designed and are working on, the living over the shop scheme, and that is onsite at the moment. I mentioned the railway cottages, where, again, a lot of work has gone in with regard to the design and the heritage side in order to bring those back into place. As I mentioned earlier, there are issues with regard to the living over the shop scheme. It is difficult from the position of fire regulations, in particular because of the requirement for separate means of access. We have asked the Department to look at this in terms of the possibility of the use of sprinklers and so on, as used in other European cities, but it is difficult to bring them up to the building regulations and fire regulations. We can obviously look at other uses, for example, community uses.

Senator Victor Boyhan

With regard to the council’s register or inventory of properties, is Mr. Curran confident that is up to date? As chief executive, is he fully aware of the properties in the ownership of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, or as much as he can be?

Mr. Frank Curran

As much as we can be. That is why we put in place the property management section in order to look at those. I know there is work going on in terms of an ICT system so we can align all of this.

Senator Victor Boyhan

Can Mr. Curran confirm if the council is currently purchasing or competing in the open market for properties? Someone suggested to me that Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council had recently purchased a house for in excess of €600,000 in the town. I do not know if that is correct and I am asking Mr. Curran. Is the council competing at that level, in around the €400,000 to €600,000 mark, against what are effectively other people in the market trying to purchase houses?

Mr. Frank Curran

I will ask Ms Keenan, who is directly involved, to deal with that.

Ms Catherine Keenan

We do not have an acquisition programme in terms of purchasing in the market as such.

Senator Victor Boyhan

The council has not purchased a house in the last 12 months.

Ms Catherine Keenan

We probably have. To be honest, I am not sure what particular house the Senator is talking about.

Senator Victor Boyhan

This is not about the specifics. It is that the council is in the market. It is purchasing houses.

Ms Catherine Keenan

No, we are not actively in the market but there may have been a particular one we came across.

Senator Victor Boyhan

Okay, there were certain circumstances. I appreciate that.

Mr. Curran said that if he were to make an ask, it is to have more residential zoned land in the county, and I know it is a tight county. How much land is in the ownership of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and how much of that land is zoned residential?

Mr. Frank Curran

Pretty much everything that we own and that is serviced, we have identified for delivery. The next area we are targeting is towards Old Conna, Rathmichael and that area. We are looking at a local area plan, an infrastructure audit and to bring those units forward. Ms Keenan has the exact figures.

Senator Victor Boyhan

The detail I want here today is how many hectares are zoned residential versus the hectares of land within the ownership of the council.

Ms Catherine Keenan

I would have to tot them all up. I have all the figures.

Senator Victor Boyhan

I do not want to take up too much time. The council might provide the committee with those figures. It was an issue that Mr. Curran himself raised in terms of the zoned land within Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. I think it would be helpful. I would like to know that about every local authority but, as the witnesses are here today, I ask them to provide the committee with an overview of the amount of land that is in the ownership of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and how much of that is zoned residential.

It would be helpful in the context of the ask for additional lands to be zoned residential because the OPR tells us we have far too much land. We are asking local authorities to dezone land zoned residential, while in today's paper I read local authorities need more land zoned residential. We are getting mixed messaging about residential zoned land. Will the witnesses supply the committee-----

Ms Catherine Keenan

We can. We have a lot of rezoned land that is not serviced and requires local area plans up around Old Conna-Rathmichael-----

Senator Victor Boyhan

An overview would be helpful to get an understanding of how much land the council has that is zoned residential.

Mr. Frank Curran

We have that readily available and will supply it to the committee.

Senator Victor Boyhan

Thank you very much.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

How much does it cost to build a three-bedroom apartment in the city, roughly, or a house? Mr. Keegan talked about the inflationary costs. We all know them. What is the working figure for a three-bedroom apartment or house in the city?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

I do not want to give specifics for procurement and commercial sensitivity reasons, but-----

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

I do not want a specific example.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

I can give ranges. A three-bed house is probably somewhere between €350,000 and €425,000 to build; a three-bed apartment is upward of €425,000, towards over €500,000.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

Could we have the same figure for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown?

Mr. Frank Curran

I would say it is similar. It is in that ballpark, maybe a little bit higher in parts of the county.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

Both councils are able to avail of the additional funding increase, which has been referenced.

Mr. Frank Curran

The affordable housing fund has increased from €100,000 to €150,000.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

That is what the councils are working with to deliver affordable housing, both for cost rental and affordable purchase.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

Yes.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

In terms of voids and vacancies in council housing stock, in the past two years how many voids, by which I mean city council flats or houses that where boarded up, have been renovated and relet? What are the numbers for the past year or two?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

I do not know off the top of my head but they are reported annually so I can definitely supply the figures to members.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

I am not putting Mr. Curran on the spot. If he has it, that is grand.

Mr. Frank Curran

No.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

Are the councils actively pursuing their own properties?

Mr. Frank Curran

Without a doubt. All our properties are what we see as low-hanging fruit. One of the things we have been working on this year and have had engagement with the Minister on is the need to try to reduce our standing void number. That number in Dublin city has been around 500. We are trying to get it to 400 or below because it is in essence building 100 new homes if we bring that number down. The issue is we get an awful lot of churn in the system with people transferring, passing away or for whatever reason. We will always have voids. Part of what drives people crazy is driving past a local authority house in Finglas, the central area or wherever it happens to be and seeing it boarded up. They say it is an absolute disgrace. The issue is getting that activated, getting contractors or our staff in there and getting it turned around as quickly as possible.

We have an active voids programme. It is top of my management list on a weekly basis with my housing operations manager. Where are we at? What are our numbers? What is on-site? What is coming back? We also have that conversation with our allocations team to make sure that team has the allocations done and we are not waiting to allocate them.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

I appreciate Dublin City Council is doing its development plan and there will be some changes but of the land already zoned for residential in the city and owned by the council, what percentage is not under development by the council?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

It is a very small percentage. It is under development or in the pipeline. Some 95% or 96% of all land we own that is available for housing is in the pipeline. We have small pockets around the northern fringe that will come in post 2026 and we can use around there. We do not have huge swathes of land anymore. All of our active housing serviced land is in play, for want of a better phrase.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

That is great, thanks. There is a narrative out there that council targets are too low, that they are underdelivering on them and that they will fail to address the housing crisis, which is destroying people's lives. There is also an accusation regarding the commitment to move away from private contribution and private developer involvement in the delivery of social housing. On the suggestion that we do away with private developers, what impact would that have on increasing the delivery of housing and the supply of social and affordable housing and affordable cost rental? People are desperate for an end to the housing crisis and it is tempting to think if it was taken out of local authorities' hands and those of private developers supplying local authorities, it could be solved. What impact would it have on the witnesses' ability to deliver?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

I think I understand the question correctly. If we were to remove it immediately, it would take away the Part V element. There are 21,000 unactivated planning permissions. That is the opportunity for additionality. That is the opportunity for us and what we need to get after. I do not think we can take out the private element and I do not think the Senator means Dublin City Council employing people as brickies and carpenters to build houses.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

That is the suggestion.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

We will always need builders or developers to assist us in the delivery of social housing.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

Why can Dublin City Council not do that?

Mr. Owen Keegan

We are not in the housebuilding market at the moment. It is years since we have built houses. We do a certain amount of refurbishment of voids by direct labour but our labour force is not geared up for it and I do not think it makes any sense. A co-operative approach with the private sector is better.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

Thank you.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

I have a question about cost rental. Will Dublin City Council be in the business of providing cost rental or will it leave it to AHBs predominantly? The same question is for Dún Laoghaire. All of the viability issues spoken of earlier for apartments and so on feed into that. Is there an opportunity for us to avail of some of the build-to-rent developments that have been given permission? Could some of them be developed? Is there viability for them to be cost rental?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

In answer to the first part of the question, Emmet Road will be cost rental delivered by us. There are projects that will be LDA cost rental, projects that will be AHB cost rental through CREL and some where it is still to be clearly defined how they will pan out as they come to fruition.

In regard to the second part of the question, the Deputy might remind me what it was.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

Build to rent-----

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

Build to rent, the private rental sector, PRS, market and where that goes as interest rates increase is probably the opportunity for the State and local authorities. Things are so volatile and changing so rapidly that we have to see where that goes. There is an opportunity. Build to rent from a cost-rental perspective would meet the criteria, as far as I am aware of the planning.

Mr. Owen Keegan

We have been approached in the past two or three months by developers with permissions for build-to-rent units who do not see a prospect of developing now. The market has fundamentally changed. There is a real possibility we could get heavily involved in taking those units.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

For cost rental?

Mr. Owen Keegan

They have to be rental sites, primarily cost rental. There might be an element of social rental as well.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

Of course.

Mr. Frank Curran

I mentioned Shanganagh, and 306 of those will be cost rental. In the Enniskerry Road scheme, in partnership with Tuath and Respond, 50 of those are cost rental. The delivery mechanism will be the AHBs operating through CREL, ourselves in the mixed-tenure units and the LDA. The LDA has applied for planning permission for 900 units on the Central Mental Hospital site, the intention being affordable as well. The LDA will be a big provider of cost rental as we go down the line.

Similar to Dublin City Council, we went out a year, a year and a half or two years ago looking for turnkey opportunities for social, affordable and cost rental. There was very little interest from the market but many people we spoke to are now coming back because of the changes and asking are there possibilities now for turnkey cost rental and affordable. That change in the market presents opportunities.

Chairman

Cost rental is meant to be long-term secure rental, liveable for life. I would have a concern if the build-to-rent standard was now to be converted to long-term liveable cost rental. They are very different models.

Mr. Owen Keegan

We would purchase those units and rent them out on the cost rental model. They are effectively our units.

Chairman

Yes but the standard of the design for build-to-rent is what I am getting at.

Mr. Owen Keegan

There are differences. First, many of the ones that are build-to-rent are actually designed to the full spec anyway.

Chairman

Okay.

Mr. Owen Keegan

But there is no market. The market to sell apartments is even worse because of the cost and particularly in the city area. I could see circumstances where they could be attractive units for us to take for either cost rental or social affordable, or indeed affordable purchase. That is a new thing that has opened up because of the recent changes in economic circumstances.

Chairman

I am just making the point that it is something that I would keep an eye on. Senator Cummins and Deputy Higgins are going to share the last slot.

Senator John Cummins

To follow on, it is right. The opportunity with the private residential sector, PRS, not activating its existing planning permissions is there. The impediment, as I see it, is that X + Y is equalling market rent and not that X + Y is equalling 25% discount on market rent. I understand the Land Development Agency is doing work on the possibility of some form of subsidy fitting in there so that it would be X + Y - subsidy equals 25% discount on market rent. Will the representatives comment on whether that is the model that will unlock a lot of this PRS stock? My view is that it would.

Mr. Owen Keegan

Clearly there has to be an element of subsidy or otherwise people will effectively be charged market rents. I think there is clearly a role for the LDA to perhaps take the lead here rather than have individual local authorities and approved housing bodies all competing. The State would be better if one agency took the lead and I personally think it might be the LDA. But there will be a need for a significant level of subsidy if we are to achieve appropriate rents.

Mr. Frank Curran

The €150,000 subsidy was mentioned earlier. That is the ideal situation for the LDA but there are issues around state aid. It is examining those and getting advice on that. Were that hurdle overcome, it would really open up the cost rental and affordable for the Land Development Agency.

Senator John Cummins

And that would be particularly outside Dublin too. Regional cities, Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Waterford.

Mr. Frank Curran

It would make a huge difference to viability and bringing cost rental units.

Senator John Cummins

To tease that out, as well as cost rental, Mr. O'Reilly mentioned going out and there being 44 expressions of interest but only one following through. Was it an issue of time when it went out on that or why was there such a low conversion rate? That is the key to understanding. I do not know whether Mr. O'Reilly has an answer for that but what did they say to explain why 44 said initially that it looked good but ultimately only one followed through?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

This is purely speculation but that is what the Senator is asking me to do.

Senator John Cummins

That is what we are here for.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

It is timing. Things have changed dramatically in the market since April, as the chief executive said. Since I returned from annual leave after the summer we have had ten to 11 approaches from people with properties who are looking to talk to us. That was not happening before the summer. The market has changed. Thinking back to April, we were in a position where the war in Ukraine had begun. There was an awful lot of flux around trying to deal with the initial humanitarian crisis. That has settled but the reality is that this may be quite a long situation with interest rates and global markets. That has all changed really quickly. Even the percentage interest rate increases have changed. Hopefully, if we can get the approach to the market correct, we will see an uptake and hopefully we will see delivery of the units based on that.

Deputy Emer Higgins

How many vacant units do the two local authorities have at the moment? I want a sense of the void figure but also any new builds, acquisitions or capital advance leasing facility, CALF, units that are unassigned or vacant? How many, if any, of the sites that the two local authorities are involved in builds on are stalled over cost inflation?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

I already said that we have 505 voids. There is probably an element of properties that are no longer voids but are going through an allocations process. I do not have an exact number but I can get it if the Deputy wants. Sometimes the allocations process takes a little time with refusals, engagement with people on the list, trying to get them across the line and then to get them to move in to the properties. That can take three to four months after it has come back as a void, depending on the property and the location.

Deputy Emer Higgins

What about other vacancies with new builds, acquisitions, CALF units and so on?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

We would have units that are finished but again, we are working through the allocations process. It is only a very short time before we can get people into them. As I said before, it falls on me and the team in the excellent team in the Dublin Regional Housing Executive to find emergency accommodation for people who do come in. The importance of bringing new units in as quickly as possible and getting them used is huge.

Construction inflation is a major conversation piece with all projects. Even when trying to get people to tender for projects now it is a question of where construction inflation will be in six months or a year. It is very difficult to know. A builder who has been asked to tender must have a serious think about that and what is happening. It is changing so quickly.

Deputy Emer Higgins

Does the council have units on hold for delivery as a result? Are there any sites where there is no activity at the moment?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

Not off the top of my head but there will be projects coming down the tracks where it will be an issue.

Deputy Emer Higgins

I thank Mr. O'Reilly. What about Dún-Laoghaire Rathdown?

Mr. Frank Curran

On vacant units, we would have about 150 re-lets per year. As we build more houses, people move on and the property becomes available and we turn it around as quickly as we can. Similarly, we have properties that we acquire. We are going to try space letting. Some of those are vacant and available. We try to expedite the allocation process as much as possible.

Construction price inflation is not really affecting our sites. We have 670 units on site, 145 are pre-tender and 301 at preliminary design. We have one scheme where the builder has got into financial difficulty and has withdrawn from the site. How many is that?

Ms Catherine Keenan

That is 13 units.

Mr. Frank Curran

That is 13 units. So that is one case where the contractor went into receivership. We have secured that site. We have got someone in to prepare contract documents to retender.

Deputy Emer Higgins

Super. I thank Mr. Curran.

Chairman

We now move to the third round and Deputy Ó Broin is the first to indicate.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I thank everyone for the information so far. Can I ask Mr. Curran for one small clarification? He said Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown was doing 306 cost rentals. That is what it says in its housing delivery plan. Am I right in thinking that they are the Shanganagh cost rentals? Would it not be more correct to say that they are LDA cost rentals in the sense that when the scheme is finished, they are going to manage those tenancies, is that not the case?

Ms Catherine Keenan

They are but they actually on our land so we count them as ours.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

They benefit from the affordable housing fund as well, which is quite unusual but there has not been a change. They will still be managed by the LDA and so it will effectively be LDA stock.

Ms Catherine Keenan

It would, yes.

Mr. Frank Curran

As a general rule, accounting for the numbers, if we have a site and we transfer it to the LDA for delivery and it delivers the affordable or cost rental we count it in our numbers. If it is an LDA site that it acquires and it delivers it, it is counted in its numbers. It is just so there is not an overlap.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

No, sure. I suspect when John Coleman is in front of us, he might account for them differently in the sense that they are his targets. It is just so we are clear.

Ms Catherine Keenan

It would be the same with AHBs. With our lands, we count them as ours.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Is that really the case?

Ms Catherine Keenan

Yes. If it is their land under CREL or something, that is one thing, but if it is on our land, it is ours.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

That is good to know. On affordable housing, I am open to the idea of availing of opportunities in the market, subject to value for money, location and proper design style acquiring. The challenge, however, is that at the moment it is virtually impossible to do affordable cost rental as turnkeys in Dublin city or Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown as prices are just too high. Even in O'Devaney Gardens, unless a magic deal is done between the Department and the AHB in question, it will be a struggle. That means that even where there are those acquisitions - essentially they are acquisitions - it pushes the rents up. At Shanganagh Castle, for example, the tender prices have come in at more than €400,000 per unit for construction. That will push the cost rental up to approximately €1,500, higher than it is on Enniskerry Road. Likewise, although raising the affordable housing fund to €150,000 brings down the purchase price, it increases the overall purchase price in the end because the affordable purchaser has to pay back his or her mortgage of €280,000, €300,000 or €320,000 and the €150,000. This is not a criticism of anyone in this room, or of the Department in this instance, but one of the things that is happening is that the ultimate cost of what we are terming "affordable housing" is rising significantly. Affordable rental projects in Dublin city or Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown could come at €1,500, €1,600 or €1,700 per month, which is going to cause difficulties for delivery. Likewise, for affordable purchase the all-in cost to the purchaser will exceed €400,000. Is that not the reality of what we have been discussing?

Mr. Owen Keegan

It is unaffordable affordable housing.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Mr. Keegan should not take this as a criticism, but that is getting lost in our conversation. When it started, the affordable housing fund was the serviced sites fund, with all its imperfections. The assumption was there would be all-in delivery costs of €300,000, €40,000 would be knocked off with the equity share and someone would be able to sell the property at €260,000. We are now in a world where a three-bedroom property at the upper end of the affordable housing fund limits of €320,000 could cost the purchaser €460,000, ultimately. That person could work his or her entire life paying off that mortgage and still owe an equity share back to the local authority. That does not have to be paid until the person dies or passes the property on, but it is another €150,000.

As regards CREL, is there any prospect in either local authority of delivering cost rental, either from turnkey or new builds, in the context of inflation, at rents below €1,300, €1,400 or €1,500 per month? Is that on the cards in the coming years? Given what has just been said about construction inflation, what rents are expected on St. Michael's Estate, for example? It was €1,300 under Mr. Keegan's predecessor.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

There is an element of looking into a crystal ball. We still have to tender for these projects and see what the price comes in at. Without predicting where construction inflation will go in the next year, we will probably have a year of planning and will be tendering six months or a year later. It is very difficult. As it sits, we are at approximately €1,300 per month. The target is to be 25% below market rent on cost rental and 15% below on affordable sale. We are aware of those targets and that we have to make them. It is not an issue of affordability; it is that the cost of delivery has a knock-on effect.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I will ask the question in a different way. I am not trying to be difficult. Brendan Kenny gave a figure of €1,300 per month for St. Michael's back in 2019. Knowing what we know about cost inflation between then and now, we are probably looking at €1,500, depending on what a tender would come in at today. That might go down at a later stage but we are not expecting construction sector inflation to go down. Likewise with turnkey properties, or even O'Devaney Gardens, are the witnesses optimistic that affordable cost rental, as people call it, could be delivered at €1,300 or €1,400 per month in O'Devaney Gardens, given what they currently know?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

There are many elements that come into that.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I am looking for an educated guess.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

I am hopeful that we can still get it at €1,300 or €1,400 per month, looking at interest rates and longevity of the borrowing to see if we can change that. We are conscious that we have to deliver 25% below market rent. We have to take all the input elements - all the financial and cost elements and the affordable housing fund - and see if we can continue to do it. The €50,000 additionality will help, but it is challenging. That is not a secret.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Has CREL been increased to €150,000 as well or is it just the affordable housing fund? Is it that the local authorities can use the affordable housing fund for cost rental if they are doing it?

Senator John Cummins

It is a change from 40% to 60% at the moment.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I think Ms Keenan knows the answer to my question. Has CREL increased from €100,00 to €150,000 or is that yet to be decided?

Ms Catherine Keenan

CREL is different. It was 30%.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

To what percentage has it increased?

Ms Catherine Keenan

I think it has increased to 45%.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Again, the challenge here is entry-level rents. Have there been any successful CREL cost-rental turnkeys in either of the local authorities up to now or are there any in the pipeline?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

None has been delivered.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Not yet.

Ms Catherine Keenan

Not yet.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Again, this is not a criticism but that points to the fact that for the AHBs that are doing the applications, CREL does not stack up in delivering genuine affordability in two local authorities that admittedly had specific constraints because private sector land prices are high and development costs are higher. That suggests it will be difficult to deliver cost rental in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown or in Dublin between the canals. Is that a fair assumption?

Mr. Frank Curran

It is a fair assumption. On Enniskerry Road, they were coming in at approximately €1,200 per month. That was developed a few years ago, before the construction price inflation. On the likes of Shanganagh Castle, which the Deputy mentioned, prices are coming in at in excess of €400,000. With the subsidy, one would be seeking to bring that down to approximately €1,500 per month but what one has to look at then-----

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

That is €1,500 a month rent.

Mr. Frank Curran

Yes. What one has to consider then is the average in the area, which could be €2,200 per month. It is high but it is still a lot less than-----

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I accept that. My point is that we started off at €1,200 per month and we are now at €1,500. That might be 25% below market rent but, in terms of affordability for those people above the threshold for social housing, for whom cost rental is key, €1,500 is prohibitively expensive.

Chairman

The Deputy has made his point.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I am over time. I thank the Chairman. If there is time later in the meeting, I will come in again.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

I have quite a few questions and, therefore, I hope the witnesses will give brief answers. The local authority of Mr. Curran and Ms Keenan is going to deliver 2,318 new social homes by the end of 2026 but it has 2,458 households currently on the housing waiting list, another 1,768 that are in RAS or HAP tenancies and on waiting lists, and it projected as of July that a further 2,825 will join the list in the next five years. Therefore, on a simple calculation, in 2026 there will be a worse housing crisis in Dún Laoghaire and a bigger waiting list than there is now. How is that an adequate response to the housing crisis there?

How many housing applicants have been removed from the housing list because they have exceeded the housing threshold in recent years? Do the witnesses have those figures?

Mr. Frank Curran

Housing for All sets out the target countrywide, which is 51,000. There are 27,000 in the delivery pipeline. The targets for each county were set out. For us, it was 1,994 in terms of social housing. We project that we will deliver more than that. That is a realistic target based on the staff and resources we have, the money we will get from central government and the money the AHBs in our area will get from central government. The Deputy mentioned the lists. The figures I have are broadly similar to those to which he referred. There are 3,700 on the waiting list, with Dún Laoghaire being the primary local authority for 2,352 of them. There are also 1,500 people on HAP. It is still a significant delivery in the period 2022 to 2026. There is a lot of resources and work going into that-----

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

I take that point but let us be clear that I am correct. There will be 4,400 households on the list at the end of this plan whereas, according to Mr. Curran, there are currently approximately 3,000 households on it.

That is a grim scenario. I do not blame Mr. Curran, but it is just not good enough. We have a flipping disaster in Dún Laoghaire. The suffering it is causing to people is beyond what is acceptable. We have a plan that is going to leave us in a worse position in four years than we are in now. I feel like pulling my hair out when I hear it. This must be called what it is, and this is what the figures are telling us. Let us be clear what we are talking about. I understand the difficulties involved and that this is more than we have done before, but it is a fact that we are going to be in a worse position in four years than we are now. That is going to be the case, unless someone is going to tell me I am missing something in the context of these figures.

Ms Catherine Keenan

No, I am not going to tell the Deputy that there is something missing. What I will say, though, is that the Deputy is right in that 1,564 people are receiving HAP and are on a transfer list. They are housed, however. Difficulties do exist in this regard. Some of these people have received notices to quit or whatever, but they are housed. Some people are quite happy to be on HAP. This aspect must be considered. The State is paying for them and they are housed.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Do not forget, though, that even if we just take those on the list now and put that figure against what the council is planning to build, it will fall short. If you add to that the 2,825 people expected to be added to the list in the next few years, it means we will be in a worse position at the end of this period, with thousands of extra people on the list. Something must be done about this. We have to do more. The Government needs to know this, but we must do more. I presume we do not have an answer as to how many applicants were removed from the housing list between 2018 and 2021.

Ms Catherine Keenan

I am afraid I do not have those figures with me, but I can get them for the Deputy.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

I request that those figures be provided because we need to know how many people are being removed from the list as a result of the failure to raise the income thresholds.

The phrase "we are not actively in the market" was used. I have been urging the Government to go into the market and buy houses, especially in circumstances where people are facing homelessness. The Government has been stating that its policy is shifting on this issue, but the witnesses are telling us that the council is not actively in the market. We need clarity on this. Is there an active policy to purchase houses in light of these shortfalls and the number of people going into homelessness? Specifically, what is happening with the St. Helen's Court complex? There are 15 empty units there and several tenants are still threatened with eviction after several years. Are we going to buy that apartment block?

Ms Catherine Keenan

We are not actively in the market in that we are not out there purchasing properties. We spoke earlier about properties with tenants in situ, however, and we are looking at those. We are not, though, in the market acquiring units. Not that many units are for sale anyway, as the Deputy is probably aware, but we are not active in that market. This does not mean, however, that we would not buy something.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Fair enough.

Ms Catherine Keenan

As the Deputy is aware, St. Helen's Court is being looked at by an AHB. It is taking some time, but due diligence issues are being considered. I contacted the AHB only yesterday, and it is still engaged in this process.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Okay.

Mr. Frank Curran

Just to be clear, we are in the business of acquiring properties where there is a risk of homelessness. We are looking at this aspect and it is a priority between now and the end of the year. I mentioned that earlier.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

How many affordable houses are we going to get in Cherrywood and how much will they cost? Do we have any idea of how much the affordable and cost-rental units will cost in Shanganagh when they are constructed? Turning to Kelly's Hotel, which is owned by the council, and which has been empty for about 20 years, what is happening with it? I refer to Kelly's Hotel in George's Place in Dún Laoghaire.

Mr. Frank Curran

In Cherrywood, we will get the 10% of units in the context of Part V and then the 10% of affordable units when those regulations kick in as well. There is certainly interest as well in the new schemes we spoke about earlier and where we see units coming through from the local authorities, as turn keys, the LDA and the AHBs via the CREL scheme. All that is ongoing and many units are coming on stream. Work is either underway or planning permission has been obtained for 3,700 units, with more to come. Approximately 10,500 units will be built in future years. There will be the minimum of 10% social and affordable housing, but then we will also have the other units that will come on stream as well.

Turning to the rent levels in Shanganagh, and we spoke about this earlier, these have not yet been calculated. If I were to estimate it, I would suggest the figure will be around €1,500.

Chairman

I ask Mr. Curran to be as brief as he can.

Mr. Frank Curran

This exercise is being undertaken, though, and it will depend on the outturn costs. The €1,500 I referred to concerned cost-rental units. I ask Ms Keenan to address the issue of Kelly's Hotel.

Ms Catherine Keenan

We are examining a couple of areas regarding Kelly's Hotel in respect of refuge accommodation, but I am not sure this is how it will end up. It is, though, being looked at from this perspective, and not for housing.

Chairman

I thank Ms Keenan. I call Senator Cummins next.

Senator John Cummins

Starting with Mr. Keegan, nobody wants to deliver affordable homes that are out of people's reach. As a result, we have teased out one of the options regarding cost-rental and a potential subsidy that could reduce the rent levels being discussed in this context. On affordable purchase, what would Mr. Keegan suggest we could do to make these houses more affordable? There is, of course, cost inflation, which we have discussed at length.

Mr. Owen Keegan

The increase in the subsidy up to €150,000 will make a difference. To be honest-----

Senator John Cummins

Mr. Keegan commented in this regard after knowing this €150,000 would be available. What more, therefore, can we do over and above this measure?

Mr. Owen Keegan

This is only very recent.

Senator John Cummins

It is.

Mr. Owen Keegan

Depending on the profile of the building cost inflation, I would not rule out a necessity to further increase the level of that subsidy. This is just reality.

Senator John Cummins

Okay.

Mr. Owen Keegan

There is an issue we must address. I would say this, being in Dublin. We argued with the Department that it must be recognised that 9% of units being built in the Dublin City Council area are apartments. Apartments are just much more expensive. We must consider this fact when we are designing housing interventions. If we want people to live in the city, then the cost of housing is important. Largely by State diktat, because of the requirement for a higher density, building apartments is more expensive.

Senator John Cummins

There are many reasons why we should be doing that. I know Mr. Keegan acknowledges this point. This is one of the reasons the Government introduced the Croí Cónaithe cities fund. I assume Mr. Keegan supports this scheme.

Mr. Owen Keegan

Absolutely, yes.

Senator John Cummins

It has been ridiculed by some in the Opposition as being a direct subsidy, but the reality is that it is there to bring about viability and purchases of apartments. Does Mr. Keegan support this scheme?

Mr. Owen Keegan

Yes.

Senator John Cummins

I thank Mr. Keegan.

Moving to the witnesses from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, my colleague, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, asked me to inquire about plans to deliver units for those with disabilities, either physical or intellectual. Are there potential pockets in this regard concerning infill that can be targeted in the context of delivery? In the housing action plan for the area, there is an ambition to deliver 10% of the stock for people with disabilities. Where does this process stand? What is being done for future years? Have sites been identified for three and four units, for example, to cater for people with intellectual disabilities? I refer to working with agencies such as the HSE, the Brothers of Charity Services or whatever organisations may be operating in this space in the local authority area to deliver these units.

Ms Catherine Keenan

We have 435 people on our waiting list who have identified themselves as having a disability. We are active in this area. We allocated 28% of our properties to people with disabilities. I was lucky enough last week to be at the opening of a property by the Saint John of God Housing Association. This was exactly what the Senator was talking about, a community home with four residents and a carer. The project undertaken was in conjunction with the HSE.

Senator John Cummins

What mechanism was used to deliver that facility?

Ms Catherine Keenan

The building was handed over by the owner, but there was a leasing arrangement then with the council for the tenants who came from the housing waiting list. We are looking at similar community homes on the Central Mental Hospital site in Dundrum.

As I said, we have one that we have been actively working on through Part V. We have a very active disability steering group with all of the local providers on that, including St. John of God, which is probably the most prominent one in our area. We are very active in that space. Some 28% of the allocations are given to people with disabilities, which is much higher than the 10% provision.

Senator John Cummins

I am sure my colleague will continue to liaise with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council on that.

I have a question for both local authorities on Part V delivery. What would the average timeline be for the time that it takes to approve their Part V units from the initial entry from the developer side to being approved?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

The timeline varies hugely.

Senator John Cummins

It does, of course. That is why I asked for the average.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

It could take a very short period of time, depending on the developer, or a very long period of time, where there ends up being prolonged negotiations around costs. In fairness to most developers and builders within the city, they are very cognisant of their Part V requirement. They take it as a given and it generally is fairly straightforward. However, there are the legal matters around transfer of title and all that.

Senator John Cummins

What would be a typical timeframe?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

It depends. They notify us when they apply for planning. That is the first notification.

Senator John Cummins

They notify the council at that point, but how about the next stage of the process-----

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

The negotiation piece.

Senator John Cummins

-----from the negotiation.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

It could take anything from four to five months up to nine to ten months. It can be quite long, depending on the developer, the engagement, the costing and the level of information provided. We obviously have our own quantity surveyors to do an assessment of the costing and there can be an element of back-and-forth with regard to that. Therefore, it depends. There is no fixed average; it depends on the project.

Senator John Cummins

I understand that.

Mr. Frank Curran

They usually come in at pre-planning stage and negotiate. They are well aware of their requirements and so on. There are always units within the development so they are aware of that. We have an experienced team of quantity surveyors and officials who deal with them. Regarding disputes, they go to planning permission and of course it depends whether they get their planning permission, whether that is appealed to An Bord Pleanála and how long that takes with judicial reviews, etc. before it gets to-----

Senator John Cummins

From that next stage.

Mr. Frank Curran

It is usually straightforward. The disputes usually come down to costs – their quantity surveyors versus ours. We usually hammer out a deal. Our guys are very experienced in that and are cognisant of construction inflation, etc. It just varies so much that it is hard to put a figure on it.

Senator John Cummins

I suppose there are differing soundings from developers around the country regarding how good this process is, or how long it can take to get Part V agreements through local authorities. Therefore, I was just trying to tease it out. Does Mr. Curran have a rough timeline to refer to?

Mr. Frank Curran

We will check it out-----

Senator John Cummins

It sounds like Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is better than Dublin City Council.

Mr. Frank Curran

I do not know. It varies so much that we would have to look at it. It is done on a case-by-case basis. Some developers are very difficult, as the Senator could imagine.

Senator John Cummins

I can imagine.

Mr. Frank Curran

Some are straightforward to deal with.

Senator John Cummins

How long would a straightforward one take?

Mr. Frank Curran

It should not take too long because the quantity surveyors can sit down, look at typical values and agree to site costs, which, as the Senator knows, can be the agriculture rate or whatever. A straightforward scheme can be done very quickly. However, it varies so much.

Senator John Cummins

Okay. I note that the Mr. Curran is not giving me a figure.

Chairman

We are running out of time and I want to bring in Senator Fitzpatrick.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

I want to ask about the €81 million that was granted to councils to support housing adaptation grants for older people and people with disabilities. These grants are important to allow people to remain living independently in their own homes as they deal with a disability, an acquired disability, old age or infirmity. I understand in the case of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council that €2.5 million was allocated for 2022. However, as of September, only €1 million has been drawn down. I will just give notice that this question is actually coming from Deputy Cormac Devlin. He is concerned about it and would appreciate if Mr. Curran could give a reaction to that. Is he happy that the full allocation will be drawn down by the end of the year?

I also want to ask about the financial contribution scheme. I do not know if Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council operates it, but Dublin City Council’s financial contribution scheme is a very valuable housing supply mechanism. It takes existing housing stock where there are elderly people living in the community who are living in a home that is beyond their needs. In return for them surrendering and selling the home back to Dublin City Council, the council increases housing stock and provides the sellers, in return for a financial contribution, with adequate purpose-built and appropriate housing. Does Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown operate the financial contribution scheme? What can Dublin City Council do to accelerate and increase it? I know there are significant waiting lists in Cabra and Drumcondra. People want to remain in the community and continue to live among the people with whom they lived all their lives, but they need city council to deliver the option to them.

In the case of St. Finbarr’s Court, two years have passed and people are scratching their heads. Two years on from the planning permission, and given that the land is owned by the city council and the site has been completely flattened and demolished, why is it taking so long for the builder to get on-site and start building?

Could our guests reply to those questions, starting with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council?

Ms Catherine Keenan

We do not operate a financial contribution scheme. We did a new allocation scheme last year and for the first time it has been provided in that. However, we do not have a financial contribution scheme, but it is provided in the allocation scheme so that we can do that.

On the housing adaptation grants, we are conscious of what the Senator saying. Deputy Devlin is correct in terms of the amounts drawn down. Sometimes we get applications that do not proceed, perhaps because somebody could not get a person to do the work, so that might lap over into the following year or whatever. We definitely progress with the applications that come through to us. I am confident we will get most of that through, except sometimes there are some issues around that.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

Are the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown schemes undersubscribed? There was a surplus-----

Ms Catherine Keenan

No. Particularly during Covid, and it is probably still a hangover from it, people either could not or did not want people to come into their homes or they could not get contractors and that kind of thing sometimes. Sometimes it would not be exactly what-----

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

Ms Keenan does not anticipate using the full allocation by the end of this year, since it is 60% unallocated already.

Ms Catherine Keenan

No. We will probably use most of it, but there will be some issues like that where sometimes people apply and do not follow through on it for various reasons.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

Is there a reason Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is not pursuing actively operating a financial contribution scheme?

Ms Catherine Keenan

As I said, we never had one. It was only put into our allocation scheme last year. We do not have a scheme drawn up yet, but we intend to do one.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

On the adaptations, we plan on spending our full allocation this year. The question on the financial contribution scheme is a great one. It leads to many other topics, such as the need for one-bedroom accommodation and one-bedroom older persons’ accommodation. Of the 13,377 people on our housing list, 9,069 have a one-bedroom need. That is a narrative that sometimes does not get out there. We hear much about the need for three-bedroom family homes and stuff like this. However, the reality is that the vast majority of people on our housing lists and our housing assistance payment, HAP, transfer list need one-bedroom units. That also leads into right-sizing, which is the financial contribution scheme. The scheme is hugely popular, but we have to have the units on the other side to put people into. I am not being flippant, but if we do not have the one-bedroom units, there is a bit of a moral hazard element as well with queue-jumping and stuff like that with it. We have to be very careful how we do that.

It comes back to the need for significant developments within our programme of older persons’ accommodation. Even within our own housing stock, we would have large numbers of people who have two more bedrooms than they need for their current situation in life. That, yet again, is a complexity. People who have raised a family in a three-bedroom home for many years are now just living there by themselves. How does one engage with that person?

It just goes back to the need for one-bed accommodation for older persons to meet the downsizing need and the financial contribution scheme. A focus on that on our part will help.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

Why is it taking two years from planning permission on a site such as St. Finbar's Court to construction commencing?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

I do not know the specifics on that site. However, there is an element of the process that we have to go through with defined design in order to get it ready to go to tender. Then there is the tender process and assessment of tender. It takes a period to go through stage 3 to get to the final product. That is a difficulty but we have to do undertake that process. It ensures value for money and that we are doing things in the right and transparency and oversight within the public good.

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

I appreciate that. I also appreciate that Dublin City Council and all of the other local authorities have that challenge in dealing with the Departments of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Public Expenditure and Reform and Finance. I appreciate the due diligence, cost-benefit analysis and all of the feasibility studies that have to be done. They are all really important steps in the process but they are taking too long. Sr. Stanislaus launched a Focus Ireland report earlier. That report notes record levels of homelessness. Sr. Stanislaus made the point that what is missing is a collective sense of urgency. She said to us, the politicians, that we need to work collectively but she also said that all of the arms of the State need to work with greater urgency. I very much appreciate Mr. O'Reilly being here today but when he engages with those Departments, I ask that he push them because we are pushing them too.

Deputy Thomas Gould

Have the councils sold affordable housing this year and, if so, at what price?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

Some 37 affordable homes were delivered in Ballymun through Ó Cualann. I do not know the price off the top of my head but I can come back to the members with that information.

Deputy Thomas Gould

Has affordable housing been sold in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown?

Mr. Frank Curran

It has not come through yet.

Deputy Thomas Gould

Will it have affordable homes for next year?

Ms Catherine Keenan

We have 52 homes in Ballyogan Rise that are just about to go to tender. It may not be next year but I hope we can get something on site next year.

Deputy Thomas Gould

The reason I raise that is, as a Deputy for Cork North-Central, I cannot understand how Dublin local authorities can sell affordable houses €50,000 cheaper than we can in Cork, especially when the average cost of a three-bedroom house in Dublin is almost €100,000 greater. Obviously Cork City Council will have to answer that when it is here next week, but it relates to the point we made earlier about affordability that is unaffordable. We are looking at people now who are buying houses that are not affordable. How do we solve that? I know there are considerable issues with the cost of construction, land, materials and labour but, what I am hearing from listening to the witnesses is that people in Dublin will not be able leave rent because it will not be affordable. Is that a true statement?

Mr. Frank Curran

We spoke earlier about the likes of Shanganagh. If those houses are costing €450,000 to build and the €150,000 is only bringing it down to €300,000, that is still a hefty price. The Deputy mentioned that cost rental is bringing it down to €1,500, which is significantly less than the market rent but it is still significant. That is the reality of the market, construction inflation and the prices we pay.

Deputy Thomas Gould

I will touch on a point with regard to one-bed accommodation. A number of the witnesses made a point about older people who are living in two-, three- or four-bedroom houses. Every one of us knows people like that. We need more of a roll-out of that type of one-bed accommodation. We have some very successful ones in Cork and probably in other areas, but we need more of them. Are councils looking at upping the delivery of that?

I am my party's spokesman on addiction, recovery and well-being. We are dealing with people in recovery who are trying to come out of homelessness. They are looking for accommodation where they will not be around triggers or be made relapse into addiction. Are the witnesses looking at delivering that kind of housing more local authorities?

Mr. Frank Curran

There are models such as the Tiglin model in Wicklow, which the Chairman will be familiar with, for people coming out of addiction. At Tiglin, accommodation is provided for people coming out of addiction. They will stay in that accommodation for perhaps a year. The chances of relapse are much lower, needless to say, by staying there. After that year, they go into the community. We have had a number of opportunities with that type of model down through the years. It is definitely worth looking at. I agree with the Deputy that we need more one-beds for homelessness, single people and downsizing. When we build a scheme of housing for the elderly, we always allow for downsizing in order to make other properties available.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

Dublin City Council has always run all of the personal accommodation. We have nearly 3,600 units which are very well done, successful and popular. It is part of the financial contribution and people want to get on board. We have a strong track record but we need to do more and have more older-person specific accommodation.

Deputy Thomas Gould

We recognise there is an opportunity with regard to the accommodation that older people need. It would also release three- and four-bedroom properties.

With regard to manning levels, we know that staff was culled in local authorities after the financial crash. Where are councils now, staff-wise, compared to where they were at the high of their staffing in 2010, 2011 or 2012? Are they back to 75% or 100%? I ask for a rough estimate.

Mr. Owen Keegan

We dropped approximately 24% between 2008 and 2014. We are still down 19%. There has been nothing like a recovery to pre-crash levels in Dublin City Council.

Mr. Frank Curran

We are approaching 100%. We are in the nineties and are returning to that 2008 level.

Chairman

It is more than 12 months since we passed the LDA Act. The LDA will be a critical agency in the delivery of housing in the coming years. How have the councils found the interaction with the LDA in the past 12 months? I would be interested to hear the witnesses thought.

Mr. Frank Curran

It has been good. I mentioned the Shanganagh scheme which has worked out very well for us. The Central Mental Hospital is part of a strategic housing development application which, if successful, will deliver a further 900 affordable units. That is very significant. Other State lands in the county will deliver very significant numbers of affordable units. Our concentrating on social housing and the LDA's concentrating on affordable housing could work out really well for us. The engagement has been fine. If opportunities have come through for the LDA in Project Tosaigh or Croí Cónaithe, it has made contact with us. It is working out fine. The delivery is starting now that the sod has turned on Shanganagh and I hope that will continue. We mentioned earlier the opportunities that will arise because of the downturn in the private rented sector market and developers' interest in turnkey housing and the possibility of a Project Tosaigh phase 2. These will enhance the co-operation and delivery from the LDA.

Mr. Owen Keegan

Our relationship is very good. We have given the LDA a number of sites, because of pressure, which we felt it might be in a position to develop, especially with a view to affordable purchase or cost rental and it is working ahead on those sites. There is a very good relationship.

Chairman

The committee will visit a cost-rental site at some point. We might take Shanganagh but, perhaps, we will wait until the DART station is built out there.

Mr. Frank Curran

Enniskerry Road is up and running if the committee wants to visit it.

Chairman

We had intended to organise a visit.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

This has been a very useful discussion, especially with regard to the issue of cost. In the course of the discussion, somebody texted me to say that the costs are exorbitant. They really are.

That is something we are going to have to examine. In a position where the State is effectively acting as the developer, where there are no land costs and no developer's premium, where the State is also subsidising the price of the home up to €150,000, we are still at a point where we are stretching the parameters of affordability. The issue there has to be the spec. It is either that or there is a restrictive tendering process that we are not getting full value for money for. It is certainly one or the other. If a community organisation came to the witnesses looking to build a community centre and it was coming in at twice the budget, all four of them would tell it to reduce the spec.

What I am taking from this session is that we are coming in at increasingly higher prices for the construction costs. If we are going to look at affordability, we are also going to have to look at the specs we are putting out to the market. That is a bigger question than the witnesses can answer in five minutes but I would appreciate if they could talk about the tendering process. Do they feel they are getting value for money? How many players are operating in any one tender? Senator Fitzpatrick and I are both very proud of having worked in Dublin City Council and we are both particularly proud of the financial contribution scheme. It is a no-brainer. It is an income stream and it allows you to pepper-pot social development in existing communities. It has higher densities, which allows you to deliver more units. Nobody ever objects to senior citizen accommodation. Is something we should be building more of. In my area, for example, some of those 28 sites that were mentioned include housing for senior citizens and I welcome that. I ask the witnesses to talk about the costs.

Mr. Frank Curran

It is difficult. Talking to any builder, they will say that materials' price inflation is a real issue. The cost of timber, rebar and ceramics has gone up. It is running anywhere between 15% and 30% up on the last year or two. The supply of labour is difficult. It is expensive. Building in city areas is particularly expensive in terms of access to sites and getting people in to work there. It is a real issue. Going back maybe two years ago, we were getting very few tenders back. Builders were afraid of committing to fixed-price contracts. There has been some movement around that now because we can look at construction inflation and provide some compensation for that through variable price contracts and so on. That has helped but there was a stage when they were very fearful of committing because it is a high-risk business. Now at least people are tendering.

Regarding value for money, it is a competitive tender process. What we get in is the value of the work and there is very little we can do about it. On the spec, we have to build to building regulations. We have to build to an A rating and the NZEB so we are kind of tied with those. To reduce the spec we have to look at the likes of kitchens and stuff like that, which saves very little money. It is a difficult process.

Mr. Owen Keegan

It is exactly the same in the city, with the same issues.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

What element or percentage of the cost is in the energy rating component of the house?

Mr. Frank Curran

Every house that is built now is pretty much A-rated. They are sealed and if possible they have heat pumps, mechanical ventilation and heat recovery. The big plus there is in CO2 emissions and in energy costs for the-----

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

I am not suggesting reducing that is an option. My point is that in the past we were not putting those bigger societal costs on individuals when they purchased a home. They had much lower-spec homes. Now when purchasing a home, they are purchasing their own home but they are also paying a higher price as a result of meeting these greater societal demands for climate action, which we absolutely have to do. Would the energy elements in the home be 10% or 20% of the cost?

Mr. Frank Curran

It is very difficult to estimate because it is totally ingrained now in the price of the house. We would not even contemplate going back to building the houses we built 15 or 20 years ago, which would have had a C rating. It is hard to know.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

I remember one development plan meeting where we talked about standards. Someone said we could pass a law in the morning saying everybody should have €500 shoes but nobody would have any shoes. We are in a very difficult area where it is now so expensive just to construct housing that affordability is always going to be a factor in that environment.

Chairman

The point of a high energy rating is that it reduces the running costs for the duration of people living in that house. Someone could have a low-cost house but very high running costs.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

The point is that it has a cost.

Chairman

It is an affordability thing as well. The affordability of-----

Senator Mary Fitzpatrick

There is the cost of not doing it. There is a cost to not building or not delivering. That is the cost that is not being counted.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I have two very quick comments, which do not need a response, and then a question for both local authorities. We have to be careful not to accept that some of the tender prices the local authorities unfortunately have to sign up to are actually the real cost of building. As far back as 2019, Dublin City Council, through no fault of its own, was effectively having to sign contracts where a very small number of contractors were bidding for large, complex urban developments. There is a widespread belief in the industry, not among politicians but among other builders, that those costs are inflated. The local authorities have to work with the public procurement process and with the tenders. If there are only two tenders in the end and they both have very high prices they have to live with that. I do not accept, for example, that the tender the LDA has signed in Shanganagh is the actual cost of building those houses. I know it has a district heating system and that is going to add €20,000 per unit or something but I have a problem with the idea that just the hard costs and compliance come to €420,000. I agree with Deputy McAuliffe that there is a need for the committee to come back and look at this. I am looking at private sector developers doing similar sized projects in my constituency and they have the same development costs and sale prices as what the LDA has signed in Shanganagh. That is no criticism of the LDA or the local authorities but let us not assume that just because that is the price a developer or building contractor gives, that is the actual market value. I have talked to building contractors that are doing medium-sized apartment developments in Dublin city and in my own local authority area and they are coming in with hard costs that are substantially lower than that, even though they are fully compliant, A-rated and all the rest. There is work for the committee to do on what the actual cost is because that needs to be flushed out.

Mr. O'Reilly will roll his eyes at this because I say it every time. It is terribly short-term for local authorities to offload cost rental onto others. St Teresa's Gardens is a good example. One of the great values of cost rental is that when those loans are paid down, it generates a revenue surplus. If the landlord can access that revenue surplus that then assists in the future management of the stock when we are all long gone and retired. One of the reasons Dublin City Council is in such difficulty with housing stock from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s is because it never had an adequate mechanism, through no fault of its own, to finance the ongoing management and maintenance. If the cost rental and social rental are kept under the same landlord, whoever the landlord is, there is a long-term benefit to the financial sustainability of it. I understand there are all sorts of reasons why Dublin City Council made that decision on St Teresa's Gardens but it is giving up a long-term revenue stream and I think that is unfortunate.

The one area we have not really talked about, which is within the scope of today's meeting but not the primary focus, is homelessness. We had a very difficult couple of months at the end of the summer when, on any given night in Dublin, emergency accommodation was full. That is according to a good report from the Dublin Region Homeless Executive. A significant number of single people and families from Dublin are currently in emergency accommodation in Meath, Kildare and elsewhere. Given that we know from the DRHE's report what the immediate problem is, which is a rise in presentations, particularly due to notices to quit, and a dramatic fall-off in exits, is there anything giving the witnesses the impression that things are going to change or improve over the next number of months? Is this going to be the dynamic from now until the end of the year? If all other things stay as they are, are we likely to see continued increased presentations and a continually low level of exits? That is what we are all looking at to see if those homeless numbers continue to increase. What is the witnesses' read of where we are heading over the next couple of months?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

Accommodation is tight. It is tight all the time. The number of families who are what we would call self-accommodating, which is when they go to a hotel, is unfortunately increasing. We got it down to an all-time low of 147 in August 2021. In 2022 we were up to 214. Our ability to provide bespoke family emergency accommodation is dwindling rapidly. It is hard to predict where this will go. The essence of the issue, as the Deputy mentioned, is that 50% of people who came into homeless accommodation in August came in through notices of termination. It is difficult to know where that goes, where the endpoint is and where it stops.

From our point of view, what we can control is bringing those voids back into the housing stock, bringing those new units in and trying to make allocations from the small percentage that goes directly to the homeless and those homeless people who are on the list.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Mr. O'Reilly obviously has some visibility on the pipeline for the coming months. Are exits into social housing likely to stay roughly where they are or will they increase between now and the end of the year?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

They will increase slightly. It is only a percentage of our allocation that goes to homelessness. The homeless priority was done away with. The number will increase slightly but the numbers of people coming in are much higher than the numbers going out.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I know Dublin City Council always has to answer questions about homelessness but we should not let the county off the hook. What is the position in respect of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown?

Ms Catherine Keenan

We have 72 homeless families and are working on their exits. We are fully aware of the trauma those families are going through. We are working to try to get a number of exits. Mr. O'Reilly is right. There are difficulties in respect of self-accommodation and the emergency accommodation we can provide at the moment, for a variety of reasons that are probably well documented. Our team is working to try to increase the exits between now and the end of the year.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I have a brief question in respect of self-accommodation. When someone is in crisis, presents as homeless and no emergency accommodation is available, suggesting that they then go and ring around hotels to self-accommodate is a particularly punitive thing. I do not mean that as a criticism but I note it considering the stress they are under. We had done away with that self-accommodation option and people got their emergency accommodation through the central placement service. How many families are currently trying to source self-accommodation? Many of those people will be over-holding and, therefore, putting themselves and the owners of the properties in an even more difficult situation. Do we know how many households are in that position?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

We have 214 families currently self-accommodating.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Those are families who are in emergency accommodation they secured themselves.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

That is the case.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

How many have presented, have yet to get into emergency accommodation and are trying to self-accommodate?

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

Some 27 families have exited. For the 27 families who exit to a tenancy, 27 other families can go into that emergency accommodation. It is hard to predict. The reality is that the number of new presentations less 27 is the actual figure.

Deputy Paul McAuliffe

Private developers are able to have a lower all-in cost than local authorities.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

That is not my point. My point is that for certain large complex jobs, which particularly affect the two local authorities before us, a very small number of building contractors are tendering for such projects. From all the information I have, the prices they quote for the build are higher than the cost of comparable private sector projects. That is a real problem but it is for another day.

Chairman

That requires a longer discussion.

Senator John Cummins

The problem is that the tender is the tender.

Mr. Owen Keegan

We would be happier if there was more competitive tension in that regard. However, they are very complex projects. If many developers have other work, they find our work less attractive. We are still effectively working on a fixed-price contract system with some allowance for inflation. It does not include a price variation clause. It is not a particularly attractive environment for a contractor to be working for us at the moment. We are seeing a lack of competitive tension.

Senator John Cummins

I have a supplementary question about the whole debate around a ban on evictions. I am not asking for a comment on that issue. We say that our numbers went down during the pandemic but what has often been lost as part of the debate is that we did not have students at college at that time. Much of our stock was, therefore, able to be accessed. In my own county of Waterford, in particular, student stock was taken up as long-term stock. Was that situation reflected in Dublin? That stock is now taken up by students.

Mr. Coilín O'Reilly

That was true of student and tourism stock.

Senator John Cummins

That accommodation is not available now.

Mr. Owen Keegan

A considerable amount of accommodation that would have been available to us for emergency accommodation has now been taken up by the International Protection Accommodation Service, IPAS.

Chairman

We are going to have representatives of a number of other local authorities before the committee. We do not want to let Dublin City Council and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council answer all the questions. On behalf of the committee, I thank Mr. Keegan, Mr. O'Reilly, Ms McNamara, Mr. Curran and Ms Keenan for their attendance. It has been a helpful meeting. To reiterate comments that were made earlier, I ask our guests to thank the housing staff in both their organisations. It is one of the most stressful and difficult sections of a local authority in which to work. They have helped thousands of people over the years. They have helped us to help thousands of people over the years. I ask our guests to pass on that appreciation to them.

The joint committee adjourned at 6.05 p.m. until 11 a.m. on Thursday, 18 October 2022.