I welcome everybody to the meeting. We are looking at the Further Revised Estimates for Vote 16 - Tailte Éireann, Vote 23 - Electoral Commission and Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage. I welcome the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and the Ministers of State, Deputies Noonan and O'Donnell. I congratulate Deputy O'Donnell on his appointment as Minister of State with responsibility for local government and planning. I look forward to further engagement with him here in the committee. At this point, I will also acknowledge the contribution the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, made to the committee in the time he served in that position. I thank the Ministers for the briefing material provided, which has been circulated to the members of the committee. This meeting has been convened to discuss the Further Revised Estimates I have mentioned, those for Votes 16, 23 and 34. While the committee has no role in actually approving the Estimates, there is an opportunity for the committee to make the process more transparent and to engage in a meaningful way on relevant performance issues. I propose to proceed by asking the Ministers to give us their opening statements - it would be helpful if they could be kept to about five minutes each - and to then invite in members to discuss various aspects of the Further Revised Estimates.
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Further Revised)
I will keep my statement as brief as possible. For the information of members and the Cathaoirleach, I am joined by my officials, Mr. Brían Munnelly, Mr. David Kelly, Ms. Sinead Kehoe and Ms. Janet Jacobs, along with the Ministers of State. As the Cathaoirleach has said, we have provided briefing material in advance so I will keep my remarks brief.
The Further Revised Estimate before the committee totals over €6.3 billion for the year. It comprises €2.8 billion in current funding and €3.5 billion in capital funding. In addition, there is €340 million in capital carryover from 2022 and €168 million from the proceeds of the local property tax, which means that approximately €6.8 billion in funds will be managed across Vote 34 this year.
The year 2022 was very challenging for Ireland and a responsive and agile approach to both policy and finance was required. While we were initially optimistic for a return to pre-pandemic activity and expenditure, 2022 was an even more challenging year on many fronts. As we continued to contend with the continued reality of Covid-19 and dealt with new and emerging challenges in 2022, specifically the war in Ukraine and global supply chain issues, the pace of delivery anticipated at the outset was simply not possible and there was consequential impact on delivery and expenditure. However, we pushed on assertively to support strong housing delivery. My Department continued to work in driving important legislative and structural change, ensuring that vulnerable households were protected and delivering cross-Government supports. Budget 2023 confirms the Government’s financial support for housing, underscoring it as one of the top priorities.
I will now very briefly take the committee through the key areas of expenditure for 2023. On housing, 2023 is the second year of the implementation of the Housing for All plan and will see continued record investment in housing. Overall, €4.5 billion in capital funding is being provided through a combination of Exchequer resources, lending by the Housing Finance Agency and investment by the Land Development Agency. The capital investment will be supplemented by a further €1.4 billion to support the implementation of current funded housing programmes. This funding will ensure that 27,000 additional households will have their housing needs met in 2023 through the provision of social and affordable housing.
Addressing homelessness is the key priority for me and my Department. Budget 2023 provides €215 million in funding for homelessness services. This funding will allow local authorities and their NGO service delivery partners to support individuals and families experiencing homelessness. This includes emergency accommodation but also other related supports. The long-term answer, of course, remains an increased and sustainable supply of new housing. The Government's overall objective is to ensure we can support all households experiencing homelessness in securing a home. That is why my Department is firmly focused on continuing to accelerate the delivery of social housing. The main focus for 2023 is on capital investment to deliver new-build homes to support households on social housing waiting lists. Some 11,830 new social homes will be delivered and the majority of these, 9,100, will be new-build social homes. In addition, 9,600 new tenancies will be supported through housing assistance payment and the rental accommodation scheme. In line with the Government’s commitment to deliver affordable housing for all, more new affordable homes will be delivered in 2023. The total funding being provided will finance a range of affordability schemes and measures to deliver over 5,500 new affordable purchase and cost-rental homes.
Along with the provision of new social and affordable homes, the investment for housing this year will also address a broader range of critical housing areas, including special needs, initiatives to address vacancy, the better utilisation of existing stock, remediation of defective homes and the provision of supports to maintain people in their homes through retrofitting measures, upgrades and adaptation works.
My Department has made substantial progress on how we manage our water quality and water services. Central to this is establishment of Uisce Éireann as a separate company from its parent, Ervia, being in public ownership as a national, standalone, regulated utility to be known as Uisce Éireann. An industrial relations agreement, which will assist in ensuring a stable operational environment is maintained, is in place on a framework for the future delivery of water services between the Department, Uisce Éireann, the County and City Management Association and union representatives.
In 2023, my Department is providing over €1.6 billion to Uisce Éireann for the delivery of water services. This includes €974 million in capital to allow it to continue its investment programme to modernise and expand the capacity of Ireland’s water infrastructure through projects such as the wastewater treatment plants at Ringsend and Arklow and the Athlone main drainage project, which will raise network capacities, increase water quality and bring us closer to compliance with European directives. This record level of investment will ensure that Uisce Éireann can support the delivery of the Government’s housing objectives under Housing for All. In addition, Uisce Éireann is taking additional actions to support housing connections to public water services through publishing capacity registers, engaging with the Land Development Agency to identify land suitable for development and facilitating self-lay accreditation, which has been very successful. It started as a pilot in July 2022 and is now in place right across the country.
My Department also continues to invest directly in rural water services through the rural water programme by allocating over €67 million in 2023. My Department will be launching a new multi-annual rural water programme in the coming months. This will also include a new element to support the provision of wastewater treatment in non-sewered villages.
The Minister of State, Deputy O’Donnell, will shortly speak on matters related to local government but I would like to specifically mention the significant capital investment in fire and emergency services in 2023.
The allocation will amount to €23.8 million, allowing greater progress on our programmes for the construction and upgrading of fire stations, the procurement of fire appliances and other essential, specialised equipment, and the provision of enhanced communication facilities. Also, my Department, over the past three years, has worked closely with local authorities to provide an essential lifeline to local businesses in the form of a rates waiver. To the end of 2022, over €1.28 billion had been routed through the Local Government Fund for this purpose.
This year, some €56 million will be provided to Met Éireann, enabling the provision of a range of meteorological services to customers, including monitoring, analysis and the prediction of Ireland’s weather and climate to ensure the quality, timeliness and reliability of these essential services.
Before I hand over to the Ministers of State, I note the newly established Tailte Éireann and the Electoral Commission, An Coimisiún Toghcháin. Tailte Éireann will provide the authoritative property registration system, national mapping and surveying infrastructure, and property valuation service for the State. An Coimisiún will be central to how Ireland’s electoral system is administered, how it develops and how it is safeguarded.
I have kept my remarks as brief as possible and will now hand over to Minister of State, Deputy O’Donnell. He will speak about the important work being funded in local government and planning.
I thank the Chair for his kind remarks and words of welcome. I look forward to working with him and his committee. I also look forward to working with my ministerial colleagues, the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan.
I welcome the opportunity to discuss with the committee the Estimates for 2023 in the areas of local government, planning, Traveller accommodation and support, and housing for people with a disability and older people.
Supporting vulnerable households with their housing needs continues to be of paramount importance. I am particularly pleased, therefore, that over €259 million in dedicated funding is being provided in 2023 to meet the needs of our vulnerable people, including older people, people with a disability and members of the Traveller community.
For older people and people with a disability, some €92 million is being provided for private housing adaptation grants and adaptation grants for local authority-owned social homes. Both grant schemes enable adaptation works and are critical to ensure that people with disabilities and older people can stay at home for longer. Housing for older people and people with a disability is also funded by the mainstream capital programmes such as local authority social housing and the capital assistance scheme. The latter provides funding to approved housing bodies for specialist housing. A sum of €137 million is being allocated in 2023.
A sum of €27 million in dedicated funding is being provided in 2023 to support the Traveller community. Capital funding is being increased by 11% to €20 million, which will support a range of Traveller-specific accommodation schemes, including halting sites and group housing schemes. This also includes critically important work on the implementation of the recommendations set out in the Traveller accommodation expert review report.
On local government, the Local Government Fund’s primary purpose is to channel local property tax to local authorities following collection by the Revenue Commissioners, as well as supporting certain local authority initiatives. This programme includes a contribution to the Local Government Fund of €421.3 million in 2023 to support the local government sector in providing a range of essential services at local level, including assistance towards increased pay and pensions costs arising under national pay agreements; the local property tax equalisation payments; and important local government initiatives across the country, including supporting shared services.
In 2023, income sources into the Local Government Fund are estimated to be local property tax of €10 million and payment from the Vote of €421.3 million. The payment from the Vote includes the Exchequer contribution to LPT equalisation of €118 million. The total LPT allocations for 2023 are just under €609.9 million, which includes the impact of all local variation decisions.
On planning, where there is significant activity, a few key programmes merit mention. Some €136 million is being provided for the urban regeneration development fund in 2023, which was recently launched by the Minister; €5.8 million in current and capital funding is being provided towards the cost of the activities of the Land Development Agency in 2023; over €31 million in funding is being provided for the operational budgets of An Bord Pleanála and the Office of the Planning Regulator; and €5.4 million is being provided to augment local government planning resourcing and training.
As mentioned by the Minister, Tailte Éireann has been established. It will provide the authoritative property registration system, national mapping and surveying infrastructure and property valuation service for the State. A sum of €84.1 million in capital and current funding is provided for the operation of Tailte Éireann in 2023.
I thank the Chair and members for giving their time this afternoon. I will now hand over to my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan. He will speak about the important work being funded in the areas of heritage, electoral reform and the water and marine environment.
Go raibh maith agat a Aire, a Chathaoirligh agus an choiste. I, too, welcome the opportunity to discuss with the committee the Estimates for 2023 in the areas of heritage, electoral reform and the water and marine environment.
I will first discuss the heritage side of my brief. Central to what we do in the Department are the National Monuments Service, the built heritage programmes and the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS. They are extraordinary teams who do incredible work the length and breadth of the country. They deliver for the citizen directly, and through the agencies and bodies under our aegis, namely, the Heritage Council, Waterways Ireland and the Irish Heritage Trust. Funding for heritage and nature programmes has increased by €40 million, or 22.6%, in 2023.
Last year, I secured Government agreement to establish the National Parks and Wildlife Service as an executive agency within the Department. Furthermore, I got a commitment to provide an additional €55 million over three budgetary cycles to fund and drive a programme of renewal for the agency. I am delighted to say the agency is now established, the action plan for its renewal is ahead of schedule and the first tranche of that renewal resource was secured for 2023.
I am also delighted that in 2023 I have been able to secure additional resources to continue the superb work of the Heritage Council, the Heritage Trust and Waterways Ireland. For Waterways Ireland, in particular, the commencement of work on phase 2 of the Ulster Canal is a huge milestone. I look forward to its completion in 2023.
Additional capital resources for 2023 will allow support for hundreds of built and archaeological heritage restoration and protection projects throughout the country. These are the projects which animate our towns and villages that dot the countryside while telling the narrative of past generations. I am delighted to maintain the upward trajectory of our investment programme.
Regarding electoral reform, I acknowledge the ambitious reform programme set out in the programme for Government, Our Shared Future. To this end, I am very pleased to have delivered its legislative elements with the Electoral Reform Act, having been enacted in July, and to have progressed our two flagship initiatives, namely, the establishment of our independent Electoral Commission, An Coimisiún Toghcháin, and the modernisation of the electoral registration process.
As mentioned by the Minister, the Electoral Reform Act 2022 provided for the establishment of an independent statutory electoral commission. I am pleased to say that An Coimisiún Toghcháin was formally established on 9 February. The budget for an coimisiún in 2023 is €5.7 million. This funding will provide a strong base for it in its first year of operation as it builds capacity and expertise.
I thank the Chair and members for giving their time this afternoon. The Minister, Minister of State and I look forward to answering any questions.
I welcome the Minister and Ministers of State. The Department is very large and has responsibility for a wide range of areas. The committee rightly focuses on housing but we try to have a balance by discussing all the portfolios in the Department. I congratulate Deputy O'Donnell on his appointment as Minister of State in the Department.
In measuring and approving spending, we need to measure outcomes. When the quarter 4 figures for housing completions were published a fortnight ago, there was a major dispute on the veracity of the Central Statistics Office, CSO, figures. I ask the Minister to comment on that. If we are going to measure the housing being built, it is important that we use figures in which we have confidence. The debate on these figures has not been helpful.
There was very strong delivery in quarter 4. It was a matter of a debate that we had in the Dáil Chamber and, indeed, at committee. Last year, the outturn was 29,851 new homes across all tenures. That figure has been verified by the Central Statistics Office, the independent agency the State depends on and respects. If others want to call the CSO figures into question, they must state whether they also call into question other statistics published by that office.
That is a dangerous path to go down. Completions were strong in the last quarter and that can be seen on the ground. Commencements remain strong too. For the information of members, there were 2,108 new housing commencements in January. That is the highest number of commencements in January since we began collating those records in 2014.
To get back to the Deputy's point, the Housing for All plan targeted 24,600 last year and we exceeded that target by more than 5,000. By any yardstick that is a good performance in a difficult year. We know we need to do more. We have a target this year of 29,000 and we intend to exceed that also. In the coming weeks I will be publishing the returns for both social and affordable housing delivery. We are awaiting final returns from some of the local authorities. Again, those will be verified figures and will very much feed into the overall figure of 29,851.
Many of those new homes will be new builds for sale. The first home scheme is an important tool to make some of those homes more affordable than they would otherwise be. That is not necessarily to say they are affordable but that they are more affordable than they would have been without Government intervention. Has the Minister any indication this year of the uptake that is expected and where that scheme is in the overall spending?
The first home scheme is one of the affordability measures we have in place and it is working very well. We have just short of 1,000 approvals already. The scheme only launched on 7 July last year. We wanted to ensure we had the IT system in place to back it up. There has been strong interest in it. The State is taken an equity stake and not a second mortgage. It helps bridge the affordability gap for new homes for first-time buyers and it applies the fresh start principles, which cover those who are divorced, do not own a property or have gone through personal insolvency.
I am aware of the scheme. There are places where more new homes are being built and places where fewer are being built. Is the Department working with the sector to try to ensure there is a spread of supply?
To answer the question directly, with the first home scheme in particular, we have had approvals in 29 of the 31 local authorities. There are only two counties in Ireland that have not had approvals yet. It helps to drive first-time buyer development and delivery and we are seeing that response on the ground. We were in Drogheda this morning and all those homes will be under the caps for the first home scheme. We have revised them too, as the Deputy knows. I believe we have targeted 2,000 for the first home scheme this year. That is on top of the other delivery we are doing on local authority affordable housing, which I might turn to in a moment. The response has been positive and strong. People, and first-time buyers in particular, are accessing it to help them buy their home.
I have two more questions. One is on the Commission's approval of the Croí Cónaithe scheme and where the Minister sees the uptake on that within the Estimates. The second is the affordable housing-cost rental model. I am somewhat concerned some local authorities are not taking it up. During our hearings on Housing for All, some authorities said they do not feel the model is a fit for their area. Affordable rental is something that should be provided in every area. It is about balancing the operators, the private market and so on. I would like to see more commitment by local authorities and approved housing bodies, AHBs. God knows we have enough of the latter already, but if they are not taking this up, perhaps we need to consider dedicated AHBs. We need to see more progress on the affordable rental side because it is an important tool in the overall range we have provided.
I will make two quick points. Under the affordable housing fund for local authority-led affordable housing, we saw the first homes being built and sold last year. There were some issues with conveyancing that have been rectified. We have approved 42 schemes throughout the country and these will deliver more than 3,000 so far for affordable purchase, let by the local authorities.
On cost rental, we want local authorities to do it where it is appropriate. We have a number of schemes to deliver cost rental that have come in from local authorities and these are being reviewed right now. It makes sense for them financially as well, because they can borrow at a lower rate. Cost rental is a popular form of tenure and we have approved about 1,000 tenancies so far. We are working on some amendments to the cost rental equity loan, CREL, itself. It is the first year it has been up and running, but we have some amendments to improve viability on it.
Croí Cónaithe is basically the apartment activation fund. It was a significant positive decision from the Commission. That scheme is about activating permissions in our five cities for apartments for people to purchase. We have gone though this on an open book basis. There are 15 schemes in that and these would deliver just short of 2,000 apartments. We are going through stage 2 approvals right now, having got Commission approval. I am confident a number of the 15 schemes will be able to start this year. That is for home buyers in our cities and making it so people are able to buy in our cities again.
I have a last point. Oscar Traynor Road in Dublin is currently at planning. I do not expect the Minister to comment on a scheme at that stage, but should it be approved, I hope the Department and Dublin City Council work together closely to get on site and get building. I say that without prejudice to the planning process that is ongoing in that regard. We do not want to see any bureaucracy getting in the way of building those houses. The site lay idle for decades and decades until finally, thanks to Housing for All, we managed to get it up and running. It is important nothing gets in the way of the building of those homes, should they be given planning permission.
I want to start with the home completion figures for last year. As the Minister knows, the CSO data are based on ESB connections and it has a pretty sophisticated methodology to try to clean those figures compared with the previous methodology used by the Department. The issue that has arisen is not about the integrity of the CSO but the difference between ESB connection data and completion certificate data through the building control management system, BCMS. The Minister will be aware that, before a residential building can legally occupied, there has to be a completion certificate. My question is reasonable and one the Minister needs to consider and respond to. When we look at the completion certificates for last year, there is a 6,000 unit gap between the ESB connections data and the completion certificates. If we look under the bonnet of that to try to find the discrepancy, almost all of it is in the large urban centres and almost all of it is in large residential developments. Thus, two different data sets, which are not necessarily equivalent, are telling us two very different things. Given a building cannot be legally occupied until it has completion certificate, does the Minister not think it at least merits asking the question about the discrepancy between the ESB connection methodology the CSO uses legitimately and which I do not question, and another set of Government data, namely, the completion certificates through the BCMS? That is a big gap and the question is worth answering in order that we are absolutely sure which set of figures is the most accurate.
The Deputy knows the CSO itself was strong in its defence of its figures and methodology, which have never been brought into question before. It is our independent statistics office we depend on for the collation of such data. I do not think anyone has ever called the office's expertise, knowledge or know-how into question before. The Deputy has raised a point on completion certificates versus connections. We have always based our returns on the CSO data and I have absolute confidence in those data. Committee members travel the country. They will have seen the momentum in house building at the moment. When we see the social housing delivery figures, they will feed very much into our overall completions as well. The CSO figures are the correct figures. I am not saying the Deputy is doing so but for us to start questioning those figures or the veracity of them is not something I would support.
Let me press the Minister on that, because my question is not about the integrity of the CSO. I was, in fact, one of the people who argued it should have this responsibility. However, the key point is the CSO agreed a methodology back in 2018, and one of the reasons it did not use completion certificates at that stage is we were still at an early stage of the BCMS and new home completions.
They took the view, which I think was the right one at the time, that the ESB connections data, with some caveats, were the best data set at that point in time. Things have changed and the completion certificate and building control management system is much more advanced. There is a question that needs to be explained. For example, in Dublin city the gap between the ESB connection figure and the completion certificate figure is 1,500 units. That gap needs to be explained. Rather than suggesting that somebody is questioning the integrity of the CSO, there is a legitimate question here, which is why the completion certificate data are different. A completion certificate is a legal requirement before a building can be occupied, whereas ESB connections can be before, after or following extensions and all sorts of things. All I am asking the Minister is if he does not think it is worthwhile interrogating the system to make sure the methodology that was agreed in 2018 is still the best methodology. By the way, it could well be. There could be a very simple explanation, or it could be that the methodology needs to be improved. That is all many of us are asking the Minister to consider. Some 6,000 homes is a big difference, so how does he explain the difference between the two methodologies?
First, we must look at the context of where this discussion came from, which was the announcement by the Government that we had exceeded our targets under Housing for All of 5,000 units. In fairness, it was in that context that this debate happened; it was post that.
That is not the case. An independent commercial company has published an analysis. I am asking the Minister a question based on its analysis.
I will answer that.
It has no bone to pick with the Government’s targets.
Deputy Ó Broin is putting up a commercial company’s data and data collection. Its methods-----
The data are public data from the building control-----
Could we just have the question followed by the answer?
In fairness, it is my time. To be clear, the data in question are publicly available to everybody. They are public data inputted onto the building control management system, run by the Local Government Management Association. The Minister is correct that it is a private company. I am not making representations on behalf of anybody. The company has done an analysis and has published it. It is very detailed and interesting. It has a different outcome from the ESB connections figures. How does the Minister explain that difference? It is a reasonable question to ask and he is avoiding answering it.
I am not avoiding answering it. The Deputy has not allowed me to answer it. He interrupted me as I was endeavouring to answer it. He knows the CSO is independent of the Government and its work is independent of me. It is important that is the case. If the statistics that are published by the State’s own agency do not suit some other narratives, that is something that-----
That is not the question. There are two sets-----
I am trying to answer the question.
I know, but the Minister is deflecting from the question so I will ask it one more time. There are two sets of public data, namely, those based on ESB connections and those based on completion certificates. They are both public data. They are giving us two different figures. All I am asking is how the Minister explains the difference between those two figures.
I will again endeavour to answer it. I was going to make a suggestion that might be helpful to Deputy Ó Broin. As he is aware, the CSO is independent of me. It has been very strong it its defence of the statistics it has released, which have been accepted year on year. It would be open to the Deputy or the committee to call the CSO in before it.
I have done that. The CSO cannot explain the difference. Surely the Minister wants to know the reason for the difference.
We are very confident about the housing completion figures we have.
I am not disagreeing with the Minister. I am just asking him how he explains the difference.
We do not reach into the methodology of the CSO data. It publishes those independently of me. Any further interrogation of that can be done by the committee.
So the Minister cannot explain the difference between the two data sets.
Deputy Ó Broin should not push it.
Or he is not interested in the difference.
I am trying to answer the question.
The Minister is not. He is avoiding the question as usual.
There are about 40 seconds remaining to answer the question which has been asked several times.
It is very obvious to those who look in on the committee that the Deputy has taken the data from a private commercial company because it suits his narrative.
The data are not from a private commercial company; they are from the Local Government Management Agency.
The Government has exceeded its completion targets and its delivery within the first year. That might disappoint Deputy Ó Broin.
It does not. I would be delighted if that were the case.
That may disappoint him, but it is open to the Deputy and the committee to bring in the CSO and ask it specifically for its views. It issued a very strong statement in defence of its methodology and for the main Opposition party and others to call into question-----
I am not calling it into question. That is simply not the case. The Minister knows that.
That is a real stretch.
The Minister knows that. I am not calling into question the CSO. I am simply asking the Minister to explain something which he is avoiding explaining.
We are very transparent in the numbers we publish. There is transparency in regard to our plan and our expenditure, unlike others. We put that forward very clearly. We exceeded our housing targets last year and we intend to exceed them again this year. I stand over the data from the CSO, which I fully trust. It has been the basis for tracking housing completions. If Deputy Ó Broin has questions about the methodology and data of the CSO, he should call it into the committee and put them to it.
I am going to move on now to the next slot, which is mine.
I am pleased to see rural water schemes being mentioned by the Minister in his opening statement. They are a critically important aspect of water quality that we need to address. I have several examples of areas that were rural but have now become urban because the urban footprint has grown around these rural houses, some of them estate-type houses that would have been built with individual wastewater treatment systems. Is the rural water programme applicable in those situations or is there a separate type of programme for such developments?
The rural water programme is a very important one. We are continuing to fund it. There are some legacy issues as well with poor infrastructure that was put in at a site level and we have a scheme to take those into charge and to rectify estates and wastewater treatment plants that are substandard. There are settlements that have grown which have wastewater infrastructure already in place. We work with Uisce Éireann as well on mechanisms to take such wastewater treatment plants in charge under its remit when a settlement reaches a certain population size. We will continue to invest in that.
I referred to the non-sewered villages. We have hundreds of settlements across the country that have no wastewater treatment at all. That is why we agreed the €50 million fund. We asked local authorities to apply to that and to bring forward potential schemes that they would have where the local authority owns the land and has planning permission in place to provide a wastewater treatment plant. We are carrying out those assessments right now. I hope to be able to make an announcement on those particular ones at or around Easter.
That is grand. I might write to the Minister with a description of the places I am currently looking at in Wicklow.
Planning resources have come up consistently in our pre-legislative scrutiny of the planning Bill. We had a discussion today with the Irish Planning Institute, the Royal Town Planning Institute, the Office of the Planning Regulator, An Bord Pleanála and the regional assemblies on the requirement for staffing resources. If we want decisions to be made in a timely manner and we put tight timeframes on complex decisions, we must ensure the resources are in place to make those decision as we will not achieve that unless we have the right number of suitably qualified and competent people in place. Do we have a long-term view on the resourcing of the OPR, An Bord Pleanála, the planning authorities and the regional assemblies to assist them in the long term?
As the Chair is probably aware, the CCMA, which was before the committee, has identified a need to have 541 planners across all the local authorities. A working group has been established in the Department to look at that. It is not just about recruitment; we must ensure we have a pipeline of planners. There is a worry that many of the planners who have been recruited by one authority have simply been poached from another authority. There is an acceptance of the need and a body of work is under way.
I will turn specifically to An Bord Pleanála.
The current board comprises nine members, which includes two temporary board members, who are due to commence in a number of days' time, 27 February and 1 March, respectively. In the coming days, the Minister will interview a further candidate for appointment for a term of five years, with marine and environment experience. This competition was managed by the Public Appointments Service. A list of two candidates was submitted to the Minister on 22 February. A competition for further temporary appointments from the Civil Service and the public service is under way and closes tomorrow, Friday 24 February. The appointments will be for a period of up to one year. In December 2022, new legislation was passed to move from the previous process of nominating bodies recommending board members to a new open recruitment system based on transparency and objective criteria.
As you are probably aware, Chair, the recent legislation provided for an increase in the maximum number of board members from ten to 15. Arrangements are being put in place for the new recruitment process for full-time board members and, in the interim, temporary board members are being appointed. As it stands, there are nine members, including the chair, plus a deputy chair, and then a further seven members. We are looking over time to increase that to 15. They are the two areas.
That will definitely assist with some of the backlogs we have heard about with the board. That is very welcome.
We now move to electoral reform and the heritage part of the Department. It is probably too parochial and self-interested to ask when the Minister thinks the Electoral Commission is going to report and when we will know how many seats are in our constituencies. I acknowledge that the setting up of the electoral commission is vitally important and long overdue. I welcome it. It is necessary.
In terms of heritage, I felt privileged to attend during the week the launch of the Heritage Council's five-year strategy. It was excellent and a recognition of the importance of local heritage, which developed and expanded during Covid as people were stuck within 5 km of home or even 2 km at times. The work that is being done on heritage at the moment is exceptional. I acknowledge the work of the Heritage Council and the work done in that regard by the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan. Could he briefly reiterate the funding for heritage that he outlined in his opening statement.
I know the commission's work on electoral boundaries is of interest to us all. My understanding is that it should report in July. That will give some certainty. With the potential for up to 15 to 16 additional seats in the next general election, it will exercise all of us in the coming months.
Thank you for your comments, Chair, on the Heritage Council and the strategy launched yesterday, which was a very positive event. Significant additional funding has been put into heritage in the past two and a half years in government and there has also been a 22.6% increase in heritage programmes, which increased by €40 million for 2023 and that has resonated right down at community level. We are currently finalising built heritage investment schemes, the historic structures fund, and the community monuments funds. All of them are oversubscribed. I was speaking to Virginia Teehan yesterday and she said the grant programmes are oversubscribed. There is a significant demand from communities. The Government is trying to meet the demand by increasing the grant programmes and increasing the ambition year on year.
To complement the strategy launched yesterday, the overarching document, Heritage Ireland 2030, is going to continue to deliver for the sector. We hope to meet the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, to discuss the big challenge presented by the skills issue, which is affecting every sector. We want to ensure that we can encourage young people to move into ecology and heritage skills as well in the coming years. That is very important.
I acknowledge the work done by the three Ministers and their officials on all of these issues we are discussing.
In terms of the housing completion data, there is no question whatsoever about the credibility, integrity and professionalism of the CSO. It is of interest to me that in its recent statement the CSO pointed to the difference possibly being that one-off homes were not being counted. Since then, it has established that most of the difference here has occurred in Dublin with 3,500 homes. In the Dublin City Council and Dún Laoghaire areas there are virtually no one-off homes, so we can be confident that is not the issue there.
It is not unusual for methodologies to be updated, refined and examined over time. The CSO data being based on new ESB connections already happened a few years ago. It could be the case that it needs to be changed again, but that would be following an examination. No methodology is infallible as such and anyone involved in data will tell us that.
Does the Minister with responsibility for housing not feel it is worth getting to the bottom of it to try and understand what the difference is about, given the gap of 6,000 between the CSO data based on new ESB connections and the data from the building control management system, so that we can be sure about the data on new home completions?
I appreciate Deputy O'Callaghan's opening comments. First, there is no question about the CSO data, which as we see it, tally very much with the returns we are getting around the country on housing completions. He raised a point about methodology. What is used in the future will be for the CSO to decide itself independently of me in terms of how it moves forward. I am not putting this in a confrontational way, but the debate on the issue has been somewhat skewed post the first year of Housing for All. People do not have to agree with everything in Housing for All. They can criticise and have a different plan and that is fine too but I am very confident with the veracity of the data that we have, which tally with what we see in the returns we get across the local authorities. Any change in the methodology or the presentation of the data would be a matter for the CSO itself. We review all data sets that come in, including the private firm to which Deputy O'Callaghan and others referred to.
I did not refer to any private firm.
No, I refer to the other set of data that was referred to earlier. We know what we are talking about. Our Department reviews any data that come in or that would be of interest to us. We base our performance on the targets we set ourselves. I have no doubt we will have further discussion on that in the coming weeks when we publish the social housing figures.
I have just one follow-up question on that. I assume the Minister accepts the CSO methodology on new homes and ESB connections. It states there is an 83% level of accuracy and that in the deep dive it did into this area there were more false positives than false negatives. Does the Minister accept the CSO's statement on its methodology, which it says has a slight bias towards overcounting?
I have never questioned the output of the CSO. It would be dangerous if I did, in particular in this space. It would be like questioning data in regard to births or deaths. We must be careful in that space. It is a matter for the CSO itself if it is updating or changing methodologies. Deputy Ó Broin referred to the fact that the committee has invited in the CSO to answer questions. That is fine. I would welcome it.
Does the Minister accept the CSO's methodology statement which says it has a slight bias towards overcounting?
What I said earlier to Deputy O'Callaghan is that a lay person can see the momentum in house building across the country. It is very obvious for all to see the momentum behind new house buildings and new house completions.
I have two more questions. In terms of the spend in 2022, how much was returned to the Exchequer? I know €340 million was carried over into 2023.
In respect of the expenditure for last year, I will be submitting a capital expenditure management report for the end of quarter 4 to the Government in the coming weeks. The Deputy can expect that to be done in early March. The memorandum will show that the capital expenditure for programme A has increased by more than 30% in the year 2021 to 2022. We did flag that we would take the full capital carryover. As I outlined in my opening statement, some projects from this year have gone into next year. There will be a level of underspend and surrender within that, but it will be a matter that I will bring to the Cabinet in the coming weeks. We are looking at the capital spend in 2022 being the highest ever. Even in a difficult year where we had supply-chain issues, we were more than 30% up on the previous year.
The Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform has stated that the figure for surrender will be in the region of €240 million. Is that correct?
I expect to bring the matter to Cabinet in early March. It will be above and beyond the 10% capital carryover, which we did flag. We are not unique in that space, as a Department. Yes, there will be a level of surrender. Even with that, we will deliver more housing output than we have done on the social housing side and, indeed, on the affordable side, for the first time in 15 years. We will have spent more than 30% more on capital in 2022 than we did in 2021.
The level of surrender in 2019 was €6.5 million above the capital carryover. It was €12.5 million in 2020 and €116 million in 2021 and there are indications from the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform that it could be €240 million for the year just gone. Is the Minister concerned about the growing amount being surrendered not being spent on housing? How much housing could have been delivered with those sums?
The Deputy has to look at the base as well. Let us consider what the capital allowed in 2020. Going back a couple of years, there was a significant increase in capital expenditure right the way through. The Deputy could go back to 2015 if he wanted to but in more recent times, capital expenditure in 2020 was €2.197 billion, which increased in 2021 to €2.25 billion and increased in 2022 to €2.8 billion. We are seeing significant increases in capital across all programmes.
On the housing side, there will be a small amount of surrender in the overall context and there were specific reasons in 2022. We had significant issues with the supply chain and inflation. We tackled that by bringing forward the inflation framework, and burden sharing between the sector and Government to make sure that projects did not stop. Some projects that were nearing completion did not complete at the end of last year and, therefore, the payments were not submitted for a small number of projects, which will have affected the amount. I will bring forward a memo to Cabinet in early March.
The Minister said that approximately 1,000 cost-rental tenancies have been approved so far. How many affordable purchase units have been completed and sold so far?
The returns from the local authorities for social, affordable and cost-rental housing, which includes AHB delivery, are being collated right now. We will have them in the coming weeks and we will publish them all together very clearly. We have improved on affordable purchase overall. There are approximately 42 schemes, through the affordable housing fund with more than 3,000 affordable purchase units. We have approved more than 1,000 cost-rental tenancies. Not all of them are in place. The projects are under way and the Deputy will know many of them. We approved some earlier this week for the Deputy's own area, on the Hole in the Wall Road. Again, the number is significant. We need to ramp up the scheme further. It has been a good start. Cost rental did not exist and we legislated for it in the Affordable Housing Act. I am looking at changes to the CREL model to improve its viability as well.
I will publish the data on affordable purchase, first-home scheme and, indeed, local authority-led cost rental and AHB cost rental. There is a very small amount of local authority cost rental and we want to that ramped up. The vast bulk of it has been done by AHBs and we will be doing that next month.
We have another five minutes so we can briefly go back around members. I do not know what the figure for the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, is in the Estimates. Approximately a month ago it was announced that €150 million would be spent on regeneration. Will the Minister outline the target or aim of the regeneration fund?
The fund is specifically about vacant housing units. Workshops are taking place between the Department and local authorities because we want the local authorities in five cities to proactively use the fund to activate vacant units for housing. The URDF funding is a targeted measure. The public realm was the previous round and it may return to the public realm. The URDF is specific funding that tells local authorities to come forward with proposals relating Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Limerick and Galway. There is serious engagement between the URDF section in the Department and local authorities because we want local authorities to be proactive.
Are workshops being done with local authorities?
That is correct.
Depending on what happens, will the Department consider expanding the scheme to urban centres located outside of these cities?
The URDF is specifically for cities. As the Chairman will be well aware, local authorities can access other schemes that cater for towns and villages, which we encourage them to do. The URDF is a specific fund where we want local authorities to come forward with proposals. The Department is directly engaging with the local authorities on an intensive basis. Officials from the URDF section are meeting representatives of local authorities. There will be two series of workshops. We want local authorities to quickly come forward with specific proposals to reactivate vacant units that are very much in the heart of the five cities.
We will have a fourth call for URDF across all 31 local authorities at the end of the summer or early autumn. As the Minister of State mentioned, this call specifically focuses on vacancy for residential. In the fourth call we will move back towards the regeneration-public realm piece and the local authorities have been informed.
The committee will have a session on dereliction and vacancy to which we will invite officials from the Department. I call Deputy Ó Broin.
I have two questions on the social and affordable housing output. When we get the final figures for last year, there will be a shortfall, as there was the year before. I have asked departmental officials one of my questions previously but I did not get a clear reply. Now that we have had two years of under reach in social and affordable housing, will the Department increase the target specifically for this year or next year to compensate or are those lost from the overall plan?
Second,the Estimates document contains a target for social housing output, and this year it is 9,300 new units of which 200 are acquisitions. There is no provision for tenants in situ. Does that mean if a local authority wants to proceed with tenants in situ this year then they must take them from the 9,100 units? Where will the funding for that come from?
I will answer the second question first. The acquisition target, originally under Housing for All, was set at 200 a year because we wanted to phase out acquisitions. We have permitted now, and we have approval, that any local authority purchase will be above and beyond that and, therefore, we are not restricting it to 200 units and they will not be taken out of their build figures.
It is not so much that they will be taken out of the build figures. Will the money local authorities use to buy come from the social housing investment programme, which funds the new-build figures, or will it come from another subhead?
No. We have agreed, with the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, to have flexibility in that space too. I hope that we will be able to purchase approximately 1,500 units this year, and that is what I am looking at across local authorities as well. There is no restriction on the purchase with tenants in situ.
Where will the money come from?
We can do that through a couple of streams. This year, we are looking to make it more efficient and do it directly on the capital side but that will not take away from the social housing delivery because that money is in the base. In some instances, if an AHB purchases the property------
It could come through CALF and purchase and acquisition.
Exactly. We are not restricting that either. It will depend on the property.
For the local authority, it would come through the social housing investment programme fund and for the AHB it would come through CALF plus borrowing.
Yes, CALF or the capital assistance scheme, CAS.
Yes.
They would all support acquisitions. The 200 target for purchase is-----
For the vacants.
Exactly, that has been moved. For clarity, and so the Deputy does not come back to me about this, there may be some larger homes, particularly for larger families where we need that type of discretion.
Apologies, when I said vacants, I meant to say one-bed and four-bed empty properties.
Exactly. The Deputy also asked about output and delivery. He is correct. The overall target for social housing for last year was approximately 10,500 units.
It will be very close to that overall. I still expect our new builds to be between 7,500 to 8000. I do not have the final figures yet but it will be in that range. When taking into account other delivery mechanisms, it will be more than 10,000.
I appreciate that. My question is not adversarial but let us assume there is a shortfall of 1,000 in the new builds. Adding that the shortfall from previous years-----
Yes, I understand the point being made.
Will those be added in and the new targets increased for this year and next year, for example?
The targets we have set for local authorities are baseline targets. We want to exceed them. I was local authority officials in County Tipperary this week and they have exceeded their delivery and many others have done the same. We want them to do that. The targets set are a baseline but want people to do more than that. We expect projects that were not completed last year to be completed early this year. That will provide additional numbers on social housing delivery. None of those projects are lost. However, the targets we set at local authority level are baseline targets. We want them to be exceeded.
If something is in the pipeline I accept is not lost but there is-----
Is the Deputy asked whether I am going to reduce their targets to take that into account? No, I am not.
No, is the Minister going to increase the headline target to take account of-----
No, all the targets that are set are agreed with each local authority on a multi-annual basis and they are baseline targets.
If those targets are missed, will they be increased?
We want them all to be exceeded. We have a housing summit next week and I am meeting the chief executives to discuss this matter.
Will the revised upwards targets be published?
No, the targets are set and we need certainty within the targets but they are a baseline. There is no change to what we have asked local authorities to do at the very least. Some of those targets are very challenging. They were not set arbitrarily by me. They were set by my Department and the local authority sector, working together. I expect many local authorities to exceed those targets. We exceeded them in overall delivery last year. We did not exceed it in social housing delivery. It was our first full year of affordable housing delivery. We will have a significant footprint of affordable housing in 2022.
But the Minister will have missed those targets.
It will be below the target but there is a reality and there was a reality the previous year where the Deputy said that we missed targets, we had a construction shutdown.
My apologies for not being here earlier. I had a clash and then I was speaking in the Dáil so I apologise if some of these questions are repeats. How many tenant in situ scheme purchases were there last year and what is the budget for this year? Are extra resources being given to local authorities to complete the purchases.? It is great to hear about the 7,500 to 8000 brand-new social housing builds. I am wondering about the money behind these. Figures from the Department are showing that, in some cases, it is costing up to 50% more to build a three-bedroom house on a council's own land. What implications is that having for the budget? What figures are currently baked into the budget? Does the budget need to be revised to make sure those targets are hit? It seems a significant increase. With the massive inflation, the cost of labour and all the items that go into construction have increased quite dramatically. However, I am not sure that we are hearing a figure of 50% from other fields and from private developers. I would like some clarity on that.
I welcome the Minister of State to the committee. I particularly welcome the €92 million and the report he gave on older people and people with disabilities and the funding in that area. My local authority will shortly open a new development, Sallymills, which will cater for older people and, in particular, people with accessibility needs. It is great this state-of-the-art centre will open and I commend the Minister on this work. Does the Minister of State have information on the filling of the new positions for the housing delivery and planning teams that were announced last year for local authorities? What is the situation with recruitment for these positions?
On the last question in respect of staff, 250 staff were to be recruited for the social housing project and 180 of those are currently in place. Recruitment is ongoing for the other 70. There are 69 staff in place for affordable housing. As I said, 250 new staff were approved to support the delivery of social housing and it is an important measure. Recruitment commenced in late 2021 and into 2022 and will continue.
Regarding the question on planning, additional funding was provided and the Chair made reference to it earlier requesting a figure. The County and City Management Association, CCMA, recently completed a report outlining the need for approximately 540 additional planning staff. A working group has been established but within the Department, €5.4 million has been allocated to local authority resources and supports. The increased investment in the resources and planning system provides funding for additional staff for local authorities and supports for a new planning and learning development initiative that is currently being finalised. This will feed into the CCMA and is very much a positive development. The issue is not just about recruitment. We need to look at how we bring planners through the education system. Anecdotally, there is a worry that many planners who are coming to local authorities are being recruited from other local authorities. This is something we need to address.
: We have allowed provision for 1,500 acquisitions this year under the tenant in situ scheme The requisite funding will be provided and I want local authorities to use this money. Some local authorities have been more active than others. I am meeting the chief executives next week to reinforce that message. It is a good way to ensure people do not fall into homelessness. It adds to our public housing stock and I know the Deputy is supportive of the measure.
Do councils have the resources to make it happen?
Yes, they do. We have some AHB purchases as well. It depends on the ground. There have been some complications with people who are on HAP tenancies in different local authorities residing somewhere else. That has come up and we are trying to work that through, particularly in the Dublin region but I do not want a property not to be purchased with a HAP tenant just because that tenant happens to be on the social housing list, for argument's sake, in the DCC area, and they are residing in south Dublin or Fingal or Dún Laoghaire. We have to work that through. This has created some complications.
The newspaper article referred to by the Deputy was based on a range of factors and it did not compare like for like. Location, type of site and the nature of the development did not come into it. The increase in tender costs is not comparing like with like, to be fair. They are not comparing the same developments. We are seeing year-on-year increases closer to 10%. There has been a levelling off of material price inflation. However, it is still challenging. There is a viability gap with some but the inflation framework brought in by Government and the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Deputy Pascal Donohoe, last year has helped us to make sure that few developments stalled. Those that did stall got started again because we burden share on the increase - 70% for the government and 30% for the contractor. That has greatly helped. I have not seen all the detail behind that newspaper report but my understanding is that it was not comparing like with like. As the Deputy will be aware, prices vary depending on location, type of development, design, type of site, ease of construction based on the topography and various things like that.
The figure of 10% is a lot more realistic and in line with what is happening in the outside world outside of the State. Has there been much inflation on sites where construction workers were on-site and for whatever reason, the council had to re-tender and get a new construction company in? What fluctuations have there been?
We have a mechanism to help in that case. Not many sites have closed. Some stalled for a while, particularly in the second quarter, after the outbreak of the Ukraine war. We saw what happened there but we will reassess any reasonable request for a price increase. We receive requests every week where there has been an increase for the contractor. We do not want to see any projects stalled or contractors walking off site. Having said that, we have to be careful of the public purse too. We do not want a situation where people may be inflating the inflation cost. We have been working well with sector on this issue. In the coming weeks, our housing output for public contracts and social housing will show that we have been pretty successful, despite the difficult year.
That concludes our consideration of the further Revised Estimates for Votes 16, 23 and 34, which were referred by the Dáil to this committee in accordance with Standing Order 101. A message to that effect will be sent to the Clerk of the Dáil.
I thank the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, the Ministers of State, Deputies O'Donnell and Noonan, and their officials for their attendance and assistance at the committee today.