Shane Moynihan
Question:3. Deputy Shane Moynihan asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the Cabinet committee that deals with infrastructure; and when it will hold its first meeting. [1678/25]
View answerWednesday, 12 February 2025
Questions (3, 4, 5, 6)
Peter 'Chap' Cleere
Question:4. Deputy Peter 'Chap' Cleere asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the Cabinet committee that deals with infrastructure; and when it will hold its first meeting. [1684/25]
View answer
Mary Lou McDonald
Question:5. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will meet next. [2679/25]
View answer
Rose Conway-Walsh
Question:6. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on housing will meet next. [4434/25]
View answerOral answers (20 contributions)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 3 to 6, inclusive, together.
The new programme for Government underscores our commitment both to solving the housing crisis and to providing the infrastructure to sustain a growing economy and society. Delivering infrastructure effectively is necessary to continue to attract foreign investment to Ireland, grow our economy, foster regional development, deliver on our housing commitments, meet social needs and achieve our very ambitious climate goals.
The programme for Government sets out an extensive range of new actions in relation to infrastructure and housing in particular, building on the progress achieved in recent years. These commitments include the creation of a dedicated infrastructure division in a reconfigured Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform. This new division will be tasked with working with stakeholders on strategic project selection, prioritisation and delivery and will align with national priorities. It will develop a sustainable pipeline of projects to support delivery of the ambition under the national development plan, while expediting delivery and ensuring projects represent value for money. There will be an updating of the NDP in the early months of this year, out to the summer. Equally, the programme for Government sets out our ambition to accelerate housing supply, recognising housing as a major social and economic challenge. The programme sets out our intention to ramp up construction capacity, implement the Planning and Development Act, increase the quantum of zoned and serviced land, remove unnecessary red tape, increase innovation, and provide predictable policy which attracts private investment side by side with State investment.
These commitments build on achievements over the past five years where there has been a record level of more than €65 billion invested in capital infrastructure projects across the country. In budget 2025 we also allocated, on top of the existing funding, an additional €3 billion from the sale of shares in AIB to support further investment in water, energy and housing. The forthcoming review of the NDP will update the allocations for the years ahead, reflecting the priorities in the programme for Government.
There have already been unprecedented levels of State investment in housing under the Housing for All plan. Budget 2025 dedicated a record €6 billion in capital investment to housing for the current year, with about 130,000 homes delivered since 2020. There is a significant pipeline of commencements. The Cabinet committees will be important now in terms of policy development, overseeing its work. We will be establishing a reformed structure of Cabinet committees within 30 days of this new Government. This will include a new Cabinet committee on infrastructure as well as re-establishing the Cabinet committee on housing. I expect both of these committees to meet in the coming weeks, with the housing committee meeting next week.
Go raibh maith ag an gCeann Comhairle agus táim buíoch as freagra a thabhairt ar an gceist i leith cursaí infreastruchtúir. My constituency, Dublin Mid-West, is one of the fastest growing in the country in terms of the number of houses being delivered and population growth. I welcome the establishment of a Cabinet committee on infrastructure. I hope it will look favourably on the very real infrastructure and public transport requirements of the communities I represent. There is a need for a Luas to Lucan and proper roads infrastructure around rapidly growing areas like Rathcoole and Newcastle. Any housing delivered as part of the Adamstown and Clonburris developments needs to be accompanied by necessary transport infrastructure as well as the schools and medical services that are required. I look forward to the Cabinet committee on infrastructure being established. I ask the Taoiseach to give an indicative date by which it will be in place and will start reporting.
I welcome the establishment of the Cabinet committee on infrastructure. I will highlight a couple of key projects in my constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny. The first is the Kilkenny northern ring road extension, completion of which is of vital strategic importance to Kilkenny. It will help to reduce congestion in the city centre and improve traffic safety and convenience. Lots of projects are ongoing in Kilkenny city and the completion of the ring road is vital to these progressing. I ask that this project be included in the updated NDP and fast-tracked accordingly for the development of the city.
The Ceann Comhairle will be aware that the Waterford to Glenmore road project has stalled in recent years. The scheme needs to be reviewed and progressed with funding made available. Safety is of massive importance here. Unfortunately, there was a tragic fatality on this road recently. I offer my condolences to the family of the deceased.
Funding needs to be provided for the final phase of the N24 Waterford to Cahir road. Road safety needs to be improved along this road. A number of bypasses need to be provided in places such as Mooncoin. This infrastructure is strategically important for the south east as a region.
In the programme for Government I note there is going to be a significant increase in funding for the local improvement scheme, LIS, and community involvement scheme, CIS. I spoke to a constituent in Kilkenny who has been on the list for the last three years. On current levels of funding they will, please God, get their lane done within the next ten to 12 years, according to the engineer. Additional funding for these schemes would be most welcome.
Alas, there are roads in Mayo that have been waiting for 30 years. Renters in Mayo are deeply concerned about the rising cost of rents and the continued increase in homelessness in the county. The county of Michael Davitt, the founder of the Land League in 1879, is now one in which so many families are petrified of not having a home to call their own. However, the Taoiseach and his Government see no cause to implement a no-fault eviction ban. The great, improper declaration that 40,000 new homes would be built last year was very cruel and deliberate. Now, we have an increasing number of older people worried sick about being made homeless. Too many people with disabilities are living in precarious conditions. This week, I spoke to a disabled woman who was trying to work out how she could cut back on groceries just to able to afford her exorbitant rent. How can this be acceptable in one of the richest countries in the world? Is it acceptable to the Taoiseach? Is he really of the opinion that renters need to pay higher rents to guarantee the profits of institutional landlords? When will the Taoiseach declare a housing emergency?
About a week ago, I raised the plight of tenants in Sallynoggin who have been living in council houses for years with infants and children where there is mould all over the walls, all of the time, water running down the insides of the walls and rodent infestations. The tenants are still being forced to live there. It has been earmarked for redevelopment but the point is that the tenants want out of there because the conditions are terrible. People are getting pneumonia.
Where is this?
Sallynoggin. Since I raised this, the people are still in there and still looking to get out. By the way, the Rialto Action Group took a legal case against Dublin City Council some years ago because these kinds of conditions are a breach of the European Social Charter. The group won the case. The Sallynoggin case is similar. These people's rights are being breached by the local authority. Since I raised the case here last week - it was televised and so on - I have been inundated with messages from people living in similar conditions of damp, black mould and rodent infestations in local authority housing. It is not good enough. At the very least, there should be an instruction from the Minister for housing that such people will be prioritised to be rehoused, particularly where children are involved. Some are being hospitalised or they have to go to doctors. They are getting medical testimony saying they should not be living in these conditions, yet they are still not being rehoused. Something needs to be done about this as a matter of urgency.
The Taoiseach is the last man standing from the Fianna Fáil Governments that blew up the property bubble and then saw the whole thing come crashing down and ordinary people paid the price for a decade or so. It seems the Taoiseach is committed to going back to the future. He is resurrecting the same policies that caused the 2008 financial crash. At the weekend, it was tax breaks for developers, whom the banking inquiry, the Housing Commission and many others found to be instrumental in blowing up that bubble. There was also a proposal to lift the rent pressure zones.
This morning, in the Government's countermotion on housing, it states it is engaging "with domestic lenders to ensure that the banking sector is appropriately using its lending capacity to support the development of new housing nationwide" and developing "new financing sources, especially for brownfield sites and small builders with support from ... domestic banks as well as State support of equity investment". This is a long-winded way of saying that the Government wants the banks to lend more to property developers. The Taoiseach has suffered badly from amnesia in the past. He claimed that there was no bank bailout, for example. Has he also forgotten that the banks were bailed out because of billions of euro of bad loans to private developers? When will he learn the lessons of his own history and stop relying on the failing private market?
On the issue of infrastructure and education, I recently visited Gaelcholáiste Reachrann along with my constituency colleagues. It is an incredibly impressive Gaelcholáiste with a brilliant atmosphere. The staff are hugely dedicated and students achieve brilliant results both academically and on the sports field. Most of the school has been housed in prefabs for the last 20 years. The school has been promised permanent buildings. I raised this issue multiple times in the previous Dáil with the then Taoiseach, Deputy Simon Harris. When will the school get the permanent school buildings it has been promised and needs?
Regarding Deputy Shane Moynihan's comments, it is true that his constituency is a rapidly growing one. In the considerations for the updated and renewed national development plan, we will look at what can be included and what types of developments can be done, particularly in respect of rail services more generally, public transport and roads infrastructure, particularly in new areas. Very often, the necessary road infrastructure follows too late after the construction of very large housing areas. Recently, while visiting clubs with the Deputy I have been struck by the fact that the recreational amenity and supporting infrastructure of Dublin is much different from and way behind the rest of the country in terms of sports facilities that clubs can enjoy and sustain for a longer period. The leases seem to be very short.
The councils seem to have a very unacceptable and unsustainable relationship with many of the clubs and organisations. It is very different from the rest of the country, and we discussed that. I would like to see that developed over the lifetime of this Government, with better facilities created, but I get the main point the Deputy is making about roads, the Luas to Lucan and the infrastructure in Adamstown and Clonburris.
To respond to Deputy Cleere, the Kilkenny extension of the northern ring road is extremely important. Kilkenny is a growing city and is very attractive to many people. Many people visit Kilkenny, including many Corkonians, but it needs the infrastructural development that goes with that. The Deputy spoke a great deal about road safety. There is no doubt enhancing roads enhances road safety and has eliminated a lot of injury and death on our roads. The transformation on our roads over the past 25 years was one of the factors that has brought our death rate way down. We are at a moment in time when the numbers are creeping back up, so we need to nip all that in the bud and get deaths back down again. Investing in roads will enable us to do that. I appreciate the focus the Deputy has put on the road safety aspect of the Waterford to Cahir road. On the various schemes he mentioned, we are committed in the programme for Government to expanding those and getting some traction on them.
Turning to Deputy Conway-Walsh, again, we have made no proposals to end RPZs. We want to help and support renters. The Deputy's party has proposed a no-fault eviction ban. If we get into that area, we will reduce supply in time. That is the type of intervention that will hit any chance of getting more people into the rental market. This is all a balance but I think that over recent years, people have been unsure of what the Government will do next. There needs to be a stable environment to get more people into the rental market - both individuals and funds and so forth.
It is not very stable for tenants.
To respond to Deputy Boyd Barrett, the local authority needs to take action. Increasingly, people are asking the Government to get into the workings of local councils. They should be rehousing people-----
Impose minimum standards.
They should be rehousing people who are in the conditions the Deputy outlined. In many local authorities across the country, that has happened. Many of the regeneration schemes in Dublin seem to be very slow compared with those in other areas, which have been more extensive and focused. I do not know why that is. Some of the flat complexes and so on should have been refurbished a long time ago.
I am talking about rehousing people when they are in those conditions.
I know. That is what I am saying, but the council should do it. More social housing has been built to facilitate rehousing people who are living in those conditions.
The Government should impose minimum standards.
To respond to Deputy Murphy, I mentioned during Leaders' Questions that the Government will put in about €6 billion in 2025. It is estimated that what is required to reach the targets everybody agrees with will be between €15 billion and €20 billion. The Government will not be able to do €15 billion to €20 billion on an ongoing basis. It can do €6 billion and might even do more than that but, without question, we have to get substantial investment going in the private sector as well. That is the reality, despite all the noise and the politics that has been played with this. I am more focused on solution-driven approaches. All I have received in the past three or four days is a great opportunity to have a go or to try to associate the Taoiseach or his comments with certain positions and so on-----
Why did you not say this during the election?
The Housing Agency has been conducting a review of RPZs since last year. It will finish its review at the end of quarter 1. The Housing Commission asked that we would do a detailed, evidence-based examination of this German reference pricing system. That should happen because that is what the commission recommended. We do not have to go with it but at the very least we should examine it and understand what the pros and cons of such a scheme are. I simply said we were going to examine it and, apparently, we cannot even do that. This is a bit like the Deputy's approach to everything.
Banks do need to lend more to builders, including smaller builders. The financing of housing has been an issue for the past number of years. There is no point in saying it has not been. It is the number one priority in society and, therefore, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Government officials and people working with the banking system to see how we can develop products that can enable people to start building more houses in a financially viable way that will enable people to be able to afford to buy houses at affordable rates and get more supply because it is all about more supply, at the end of the day.
Deputy O'Callaghan raised Gaelcholáiste Reachrann. I will talk to the Minister for Education in respect of that to see where we are. If it has been 20 years, there must have been issues in the early years relating to site acquisition. I do not know but I will get on to the Minister and see where it is at.