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Committee on Housing and Homelessness díospóireacht -
Thursday, 28 Apr 2016

Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government

I welcome the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly and his colleagues. I thank them for attending. The committee felt it was important that the Minister's appearance would be at the front end of the committee work. Before the Minister delivers his opening statement, I draw his attention to the fact that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to the committee. However, if they are directed by the Chairman to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. Witnesses are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

The opening statements submitted to the committee will be published on the committee website after this meeting. Members are reminded of the long-standing practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. The Minister, Deputy Kelly, is very welcome. His opening statement has been circulated and will be published, if that is okay with him. In his opening comments, he can address the statement in full or as he sees fit.

I will go through the statement in full, if that is okay, Chairman, because there is so much in it and I might emphasise some points as I go along. I might also come back to some issues later on if that is okay. First, I thank the committee for the invitation to address it and for inviting me and my officials to today's proceedings. Second, as the Chairman is aware, because there was some comment, I was unable to attend here on Tuesday simply by the fact that I had to attend a Cabinet meeting. I think some people may have thought I missed it but it was obvious I could not attend because of a Cabinet meeting. However, I am glad to be here today at the committee's second sitting. I congratulate the Chairman on his role and the committee on its initiation and set-up. While the timeframe is short and it has a huge amount of work to do, I genuinely wish this committee well. It is a good initiative and it can achieve things. I will be very open with this committee today as regards solutions and I will be positive because we have to be positive.

I will introduce my colleagues, Ms Bairbre Nic Aongusa, assistant secretary of the housing section, and Mr. Barry Quinlan, principal officer in the housing policy area. I am also joined by Mr. Niall Cussen, principal planning adviser, and Mr. Brian Kenny, principal officer in the homelessness and housing inclusion section of my Department.

Housing matters, rightly, have been the focus of serious and considerable media commentary in recent times, usually based either explicitly or implicitly on a simple supply and demand model. In a simple model, supply and demand adjust and prices respond accordingly. However, and this is a key point, the housing market is not a normally functioning one at the moment. That is the real nub of the issue. It is not a normally functioning market. I know that while there are children and families in emergency accommodation, it will remain the headline story in terms of housing. I understand and accept that fact. However, it is important to recognise that this is a symptom of much deeper supply issues and can only be dealt with through increasing supply of social, private and rental properties. In the meantime, we must continue to strive to help these families and I consider rapid build is the best immediate answer along with greater investment in social housing, increasing housing supports and services, and continuing to improve services for families in difficulties.

Every player, State body or otherwise, has a part to play in solving this housing problem. A multiplicity of different Departments, agencies, outside agencies, private bodies, local authorities, etc., all have a role. It is really a huge, intertwined web of various organisations and issues that are involved in the solving of this problem. Any long-term solution needs the entire housing system pulling in the same direction to a common goal and this committee is a move in the right direction in terms of getting a cross-party approach to repairing a broken system.

I will try to set out what I believe are the key systemic weaknesses and questions we need to answer as well as meaningful recommendations for what needs to be done into the future. The first point I would like to make is that when we are discussing housing, we need to separate out the issues in order to generate real and true learnings. There are issues all over the sector, including issues relating to private housing, social housing, the private rented sector, homelessness, those who are caught in excessive mortgage debt, working couples who cannot get mortgages, etc. All of these issues collectively interact and impact on each other.

I support the committee's efforts to discuss them individually but they are interconnected and that is a critical point - they cannot be separated out piecemeal. This is because there is no one cure-all to the housing situation.

The remedies to the problems are not all to be found within my Department. That is not to say we do not have a major role; of course we have a major role as the Department with responsibility for the environment. However, all the levers are not in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. Many pieces of this conundrum need to be aligned for it to be solved but they are not all within my Department. Issues around construction input costs, how building materials are taxed or the price of land are relevant examples but none of these come through the lever of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. We need to be really creative when formulating solutions and I encourage the committee to carry out its work in that vein. Despite differing political ideologies our end goal is the same, namely, more and better affordable homes with adequate infrastructure to service the demand as well as an end to the boom-to-bust housing cycle.

The State, including elected members and non-elected officials, needs to come up with bold and innovative solutions. We must bring all the stakeholders in the private and public spheres with us. The simple fact is that our construction industry is not building enough houses to meet the needs of our people. New supply is very low, with 12,300 houses completed last year. Almost half of these are one-off and some are finishing out from the overhang of incomplete construction. This is a significant and real number and I believe it is not going to move quickly. The numbers being delivered are about half of the estimated required new supply given the country's growing population and economy. With the addition of new private supply so low, we really have to reassess the scale of the role of the State in the provision of housing broadly.

Social housing in Ireland makes up 9% of households, as compared with 15% in France, 22% in Germany, 31% in Netherlands and 20% in the United Kingdom. One of the effects of this is a considerable reliance on the private rented sector for the provision of social housing in Ireland. It must be made clear that the share of social housing as a percentage of all households will increase substantially under the social housing strategy. The central question for the next Government is how much of our housing problem can and should the State solve. The State has traditionally supplied approximately 10% of homes through social housing for those who cannot afford their own. This is a very real question. If that dynamic is to change dramatically as a result of inactivity from the construction sector then there are significant consequences for our overall budgetary programme. Increased funding for housing has to come from elsewhere, whether from health, education, etc. I will not talk about any other topical issues at the moment.

It is a time for big ideas and considerations. Between NAMA, the social housing strategy and the mixed-use developments that local authorities like Dublin City Council are pioneering, there will be major State intervention in the supply of housing. I believe a balance is necessary and I believe in such intervention but I also believe that in the short term the State is going to have to increase its role in the provision of housing and it should be supported in doing so.

At local authority level, elected members need to ensure better use of limited land supply in urban areas and they need to embrace higher densities and potentially high-rise living in cities. We need to future-proof our housing supply, ensure our ageing population - we are all included in that cohort - is catered for and ensure that the system is sufficiently flexible to deal with increasing demand. Collectively as politicians we need to ask ourselves whether we are doing all we can to ensure housing projects are supported and promoted at all levels of the planning and development process. I am referring to the political process beyond these Houses to local authority level, which has a key role. We need to come back to this point during our discussions.

For example, I genuinely believe it is contradictory to have politicians of all persuasions and none calling for urgent action to deal with areas where there are housing shortages only to object to the very housing projects needed, either on an individual basis or on a multiplied basis or whatever.

Politicians of all political persuasions need to address some of the negative associations that go with social housing development if we are to get a speedier resolution to our housing crisis. There are many objectors to social housing developments, even where they are being carried out by the Peter McVerry Trust or the Simon Community or, more recently, in Beaumont. Dublin County Council recently provided my Department with a list of 16 projects last year, all of which are being met with objections. There is no question in my mind but that NIMBYism and an incorrect negative perception of social housing leads to objections which delay local authorities in their work.

We also need to face up to the cold hard truth that, with the cost of constructing a new home now being significantly higher than second-hand prices in most parts of the country, we are going to have to improve the economics for the private market to supply badly needed additional homes. The sums do not add up. If it is not beneficial to build houses, builders will not build them, if they cannot make at least a modest profit. Comparing these costs with the new affordability dynamic created by the new Central Bank rules, which in general I support, it can be seen why many potential builders are waiting before they build.

The Department has been to the fore in deploying a wide range of measures to bring the cost of constructing homes more within reach of what ordinary people and families can afford to pay, but it appears that these measures may not be enough, and that we must go further. I spoke earlier about levers. We addressed issues within our domain, but many of the issues relating to costs are not within the Department's domain. Reductions in local authority development contributions, a streamlining of Part V social housing requirements, more consistent application of minimum apartment standards and, recently, a targeted development contribution rebate scheme have together reduced the input costs by anything from €20,000 to €40,000, depending on whether apartments or houses are being constructed. We need to go further.

The next Government will have to grapple with the basic economics of housing on the supply side in this country if it wants to see a significant uplift in activity by the private market. That is one of the key messages I want to get across here today. Recent history should demonstrate to us the dangers of over-reliance on the private market, but we do need to decide what exactly the appropriate mix of private and public housing is. The housing action report, Laying the Foundations, which I published a fortnight ago and which I take it everyone here has had a chance to read, provides further information on 31 major actions taken across the housing spectrum in the past 21 months to increase the supply of housing, including social housing. Every one of those actions is important and will have a positive impact on dealing with the problem, but, evidently, we must go further.

Some are calling for a relaxation of Central Bank lending rules as the answer, but with what result? It would clear the way to go back to the failures of the past, which we all know about, when families ended up paying €500,000 for a family home and then worried for 30 years afterwards how or if they were going to pay for it. Surely if two people on the average industrial wage of €32,000 can afford something, say approximately €200,000, is that not the type of house, built to proper standards and regulations and in good locations, that we should be aiming to provide with every strand of public policy?

As a nation we must also think seriously about our attitude to renting. If we can reform the rental market to make it more secure and attractive to tenants, I believe it can become a real long-term option for future generations, but the sector needs further reform. The rental market in Ireland has doubled between 2006 and 2011 to approximately 320,000 households, around 20% of total Irish households. In Dublin, rents are now back to 2007 peak boom-time levels. The measures I put in place last November will bring much-needed stability to the sector, but to really offer a secure, stable and attractive housing option, the rental sector needs more supply, with the associated competition that would bring to the market.

If we, the democratically elected parliamentarians, wish to see more people get access to the homes they deserve, at prices or rent they can afford and in locations they desire, I believe we are going to have to go further and address a number of questions. What is an affordable price or rent for a home? What exactly is the State’s future role in housing provision? How do we reduce input costs, including direct and indirect tax take - currently more than one third of the cost of delivering a new home? Is the negative perception of social housing developments leading to unfounded objections causing major delays? I think we all know the answer to that. Do local authorities and approved housing bodies have the capacity to build sufficiently? How do we guarantee that any reductions offered by the State in respect of these input costs will be passed on to households by developers? Where will the money come from to invest in the infrastructure needed to prepare land for development? How do we make land available over many years at fair prices?

Addressing these real issues raises politically and socially important questions. It also gets to the core of our problems. Many of them are very sensitive questions. We are going to have to face up to the fact that, if we truly believe people's incomes rather than the demands of the market should determine housing costs, a number of things must happen. For example, the State should set real housing output targets and set out the wide-ranging, time-bound actions required to meet that objective, not just for social housing - which I have done - but for housing in general. Targets for big reductions in housing construction costs are going to have to be set and delivered on by all stakeholders, including developers, suppliers and the State. Perhaps the State could lead on this. Local authorities must be encouraged and incentivised to invest for the future in preparing housing lands for development. A grown-up conversation needs to take place on Article 43 of the Constitution in order that we might achieve a better balance between the rights of individuals as property owners and wider social needs, including housing needs. I have a number of other recommendations which I would like to share with the committee later.

Social housing is arguably the one part of the housing system that is turning a corner. The last summary of social housing assessments in 2013 showed that there were almost 90,000 households on local authority waiting lists at that time. In April last year, as part of the Social Housing Strategy 2020, I announced over €1.5 billion in funding allocations in respect of social housing to be provided by all local authorities for the period out to 2017, via a combination of building, buying and leasing schemes, to meet the housing needs of 25% of the housing list. As members know, the various projects across the country are listed in this document. From the capital budget alone, in excess of €680 million has been allocated for over 3,900 social housing new builds, turnkey developments and acquisitions. That is just the capital budget and does not include approved housing bodies, AHBs, etc. I want to see local authorities advance these projects as soon as possible and have assured them that funding is available to fully support their efforts in this regard. There are no issues.

In all, over 13,000 sets of keys were delivered to people and families in 2015, the first full year of implementation of the strategy. This represents an 86% increase in unit delivery over the figure for 2014. These figures are independently verified in the other document on social housing output, which was compiled by the Housing Agency. This level of delivery was achieved in a very difficult operating environment and represents a good start to the implementation of the strategy. I am not saying anything other than it is a good start. I expect in the region of 17,000 social housing keys to be delivered this year. Local authorities have been geared up again to deliver at scale and well in excess of 450 staff have been allocated to them. That takes time and the announcements I made will be delivered in the years ahead. That is why this document is called Laying the Foundations. We have to be realistic; houses do not appear overnight.

I would argue that investment in and delivery of social housing are not the main issues provided we can get the housing market functioning appropriately again. The latter is key. Almost €3 billion in capital funding will be provided under the capital plan up to 2021, as well as other funding models such as public-private partnership, PPP, in order to deliver social housing. The real issue is supply for the other elements of the market and, particularly, supply of housing that is intrinsically affordable for the average or lower income household.

This is the cohort I am most concerned about - namely, those who are put to the pin of their collar paying rent while, in some instances, trying to save for a deposit. We all know it is a catch-22 situation. Without the required supply of housing coming on stream to take the heat out of the rental market and provide a supply of homes at an affordable price, we are simply storing up problems for the future.

In the short to medium term, the focus needs to be on the residential construction sector and boosting supply. It is taking time to recover from the economic downturn and, as a consequence, supply from that sector is lagging significantly behind demand. As I said earlier, private market housing is currently delivering circa 50% of the estimated annual requirement of 25,000 dwellings nationally. Lack of supply is having an adverse effect on the rental market and, along with causing all of the problems I have alluded to, will impact on our competitiveness.

We have the housing system we have because of political and social choices made in the past. To a certain extent, because of the financial crisis and its impact on the housing sector, some of those choices were probably made for us. During my time in office I have used the powers available to me not to solve the problem in its entirety, because that was virtually impossible, but to lay the foundations for a long-term and sustainable solution to this problem. The 31 major actions taken in the past 21 months will have a substantial impact, but I need to stress that I and my team could only directly take the necessary actions that fell within my areas of responsibility. This is a key point for the committee and the incoming Government when they ask what decisions we should be taking now to put our housing system, by which I mean all elements of the spectrum, back on a sustainable footing.

To truly crack this nut, my successor, whether a Minister for housing or for the environment, needs to be able to exert sufficient influence over all of the levers that will bring us to that end, including certain elements of taxation, and the powers to introduce changes that will impact on the viability of development for builders and ensure that any reduction in input costs is passed on to homeowners so that we have affordable homes in the true sense of the word.

I have heard a lot of talk that we should have a Minister for housing, and such a recommendation may come from the committee. I have no objection in principle to that. Appointing a Minister for housing and taking the function from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is a waste of time. We will have a Minister for the environment, who will have a particular role, but unless sections are taken from the Departments of Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and Social Protection and other agencies and included in such a ministry, a new Minister would be left in the same position as me and the former Minister of State, Paudie Coffey, were over the past 21 months. I admit that we had a significant role to play, but it was part of the overall pie.

If we are going to increase the supply of homes to the extent needed, we need to take a comprehensive action-based approach that is broad in scope and recognises all tenures. It needs to be an approach that boosts supply, helps tenants as well as home-buyers and recognises that, alongside new homes, we need to address the issue of how zoned land is made available for development so that we make the very best of existing infrastructure investment, land and buildings.

We also need to have a grown-up conversation about Article 43 of the Constitution, and getting the balance right between the rights of the individual, as regards property rights, and the common good. The two specific items that were directly affected by this were the vacant site levy and the protection of tenancies during the property sales. On the vacant site levy, while I am delighted that it is now enshrined in our laws and it is something in which I believe, my original proposal, following my work with the former Minister of State, Paudie Coffey, was to have it at 6% to 7% of the market value of the land and for it to be introduced later on this year or in 2017. To ensure it is safe from a constitutional challenge, that provision was amended. Similarly, when it came to residential tenancies legislation, the Constitution acted as a barrier against protecting tenancies in cases in which a property was sold.

There has been much commentary on this. I say this not to attribute any blame to the Constitution but because for this committee I need to be open and honest about the situation as I faced it. For the record, because there was commentary on this, I never suggested that the matter of compulsory purchase of land for housing was not an option for local authorities. We might discuss that later. It is not a panacea. There are issues with that as well and it can go on for years.

The key question for the committee is what the appropriate role for the State is in all this. Some might say we should go back to the massive public house building projects because the house building sector will never deliver. That is a deeply flawed approach that accepts failure. Yes, we need a vibrant public housing sector but do we seriously think nationalising all housing provision in this State is the answer? Have any of us here today any sense of the budgetary implications that would pose and the schools or hospitals that we would be unable to build if we diverted a huge level of Exchequer resources into housing to the detriment of other needy sectors? We have this famous fiscal space, a serious amount of which needs to go into housing. Everyone in this room will argue for a section of that pie to go to other sectors. My point is that we need to have a mix.

Does any of us here really believe that the answer to our broken housing system is the re-creation of vast swathes of local authority estates which in some cases have taken billions of euros to regenerate? Would it not be better to fix our broken housing market and bring about social housing with it rather than dancing around the edges and pointing out the weaknesses without the political bravery to fix them once and for all? I believe that housing economics in this country is an eminently fixable problem if the collective will is there by us, as parliamentarians, and all the other stakeholders. It cannot be beyond our ability to deliver housing at a cost that ordinary people on average incomes can afford to rent or buy. I certainly believe it is possible and I want to do everything to deliver that.

In addition, in an ideal world, public policy would not only espouse but deliver a plan-led supply of land for housing, acquire it at reasonable cost if necessary and then prepare it with the necessary infrastructure before making it available for public and private housing development in sustainable communities, capturing the uplift in value arising from the zoning and servicing of land and paying for the infrastructure through that process, which we might describe as active land management. That is another topic I believe we should get back to. I might add that, having debated this issue during the general election, I did not see or seek a quick answer or silver bullet in any political manifesto to resolve this overnight.

The committee heard from local authorities on Tuesday - I did not see their contribution but I went back over it - that there is a time lag of about two and a half years when it comes to housing development and that we need to buy and lease in the meantime. There is quite an amount of information in the documents, Social Housing Output and Laying the Foundations, both of which I have shown to the committee and which I am sure its members have had time to study. We can collectively create the ideal scenario. Perhaps the Thirty-second Dáil, through this committee, will grasp that opportunity. It might be the springboard and might take the lessons learned over recent years and the recent decade and develop a national strategy for the delivery of all housing in Ireland that addresses all types, tenures and sectors and, above all, the needs of our citizens.

In my contributions here, I want to be positive, solution-based and work with everyone. The election is over. We spoke about water yesterday but in my time in the Department this took up 90% of my time because it is the most pressing issue. Collectively, working together, we certainly can find some solutions. I have put forward four recommendations and at some point later on, I would like to put forward more based on the collective experience of this theme over recent years. I thank the committee for its time.

I thank the Minister for his opening statement. Before we take specific questions, I would like to ask him one general question which arose having listened to his presentation this morning and previously to his contributions in the Dáil on the issue of housing.

While I am not making a political point here-----

The Chairman would never do that.

-----I sense a certain frustration. The Minister touched on the possibility of there being a Minister for housing and the role that Minister would need to have to be effective. What functions should that Minister have to be different from what happens in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government? Will the Minister also elaborate on the constitutional challenges he has met?

I have no issue with a future Minister for housing. It may well be a good idea and I am open to it. I am being totally frank and honest. If we want a Minister for housing who will drive all of this and be the tsar at the top of it, he or she would need to have control of the levers or be the person answerable for all the levers at the very least. In recent years the former Minister of State, Paudie Coffey, and I certainly did not have access to all the levers. I will say this out straight. If we are to have a Minister, he or she will have to have control over certain taxation measures.

Let us be frank about this. Will any Government take those powers away from a Minister for Finance? I would be amazed if that were allowed to happen. That is the first point. Approximately 38% of the cost of building a house goes to the State. That has to be addressed. However, that is up to the Department of Finance and not the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. The person to be in charge has to have that area.

When it comes to public expenditure, whoever is the future Minister in charge of allocating funding etc. has to consider the overall pie that I spoke about earlier, involving education, health care and everything else. By the way, I have to say I got great co-operation from the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin. Getting €4 billion at an incredibly difficult time was a huge amount to get. However, into the future, I would bet my bottom dollar that that will not be handed over either. There is the area of social protection and the lever relating to rent supplement. I was very interested in Tuesday's contribution by the CCMA regarding that lever.

There is the whole role of NAMA. Who has responsibility there? What is the future of NAMA? Should it be turned into a housing agency? I know many people have issues with NAMA. However, it is simply a fact that it will have a role in housing into the future because of the nature of that entity. NAMA was set up with a commercial mandate. Unless that is changed, it cannot act in other ways. That is just reality. We have to accept that or change it. If we change it, the European Union may have issues with what is on balance sheet and there are a number of areas.

I believe it would be tokenistic to appoint a Minister for housing unless those three or four things I have mentioned - I daresay there are others - are all wrapped into that Ministry. One could envisage some sort of relationship being built with the Department of Finance, but at the end of the day, if a Minister for Finance is controlling those decisions, the Minister for housing is not truly in full control of it.

On the Constitution, I have the privilege - for another few days anyway - of sitting at Cabinet. One has to act at all times in accordance with the law and obviously we take advice from the Office of the Attorney General. One cannot produce legislation that is contrary to the Constitution. The Chairman sat there and he knows that. One must work within that and keep it between the ditches, so to speak. There will be debate. I saw the articles in the newspaper in which the Master of the High Court made his comments, but he is not sitting at Cabinet.

I am sorry, but I must take the advice I am given. I respect the advice, and that advice is from the highest legal office that supports the Government.

With regard to the vacant site levy, I fundamentally believe we have to address the issue of hoarding land because, basically, it is just being left there. The number of underdeveloped sites between the two canals in this city is incredible. I wanted to instigate certain powers in respect of local authorities to address that, and I wanted to do it fairly quickly. On foot of the constitutional issue and the advice I received, however, I had to push it out and, for proportionality reasons, I was obliged to drop the percentage.

I had similar problems when it came to addressing rental issues in a number of areas. For example, we are all well aware of the issues regarding vulture funds. I met the people from Tyrrelstown. In fairness, I was asked to do so and was glad to do so because they are very decent people. Again, if we were going to introduce legislation which was going to prevent the sale, there were questions from a constitutional point of view and there were also issues in regard to the rental sector and other considerations. That is just fact.

We have to take the advice. I am just throwing it out there because everything has to be out there. I believe in property rights but we have to consider whether there is a balance. Maybe we can change it. Maybe we should not change it, but perhaps we should. I certainly believe we need to talk about it. That is why I am putting it out there.

My first point is that the Minister is not to blame for the housing crisis, although there is sometimes a tendency for him to get very defensive. However, he has been answerable for the last number of years-----

I am in a new-found space for the next week.

-----when his party was in power and he has been in this Ministry. My first question is why the local authority housing targets are so low in the first place. The Social Housing Strategy 2020 has a target of 35,000 new units from 2015 to 2020, but only 11,200 are to be new social housing units to be built or acquired by councils or housing associations. If that is broken down, given there are roughly 100,000 families on the housing list, only one in ten would be catered for by the acquisition or building of a social housing unit, based on those targets. The rest of the 35,000 new units were to be 11,000 leases, 2,300 refurbishments of voids and 9,000 units bought or leased under Part V, although that is dependent on the private sector building the units in order for them to be acquired. The Minister can see how, with a continuation of this policy, the social housing lists are never going to be impacted upon in the way that is needed.

Another issue that arises in regard to the Minister's document is that the targets are proportionately lowest in the areas worst affected by homelessness. While Dublin is not the only place affected, it is at the epicentre of this tsunami. To take the four Dublin local authority areas, there were 22,000 on Dublin City Council's housing list in December but what the Minister is talking about would only have an impact on 21% of that list. In the case of Fingal, the figure is would be 23%. All of the other areas have higher outcomes, so the Minister can see how targeted intervention in the worst affected areas is just not happening.

The other question is on the breakdown of social housing. The Minister said that the share of social housing as a percentage of households will increase significantly under his strategy. However, last year - the first year of the strategy - there was only a maximum net increase of 268 genuinely new social housing units across all the schemes. I want to break this down. The Minister referred to 13,000 units in respect of which sets of keys were delivered.

Of that figure, 2,696 are renovated voids, 125 have been regenerated, 1,096 result from local authorities acquiring second hand homes, 64 are new local authority completions, including from Part V developers, and 401 have been built or bought by housing associations. Of the figure of 33,000, only 1,561 are new permanent social housing units provided by local authorities or housing agencies. Some 8,933 units are rented or leased from landlords or developers. We have had complete reliance on the private sector. Will the Minister at least admit, now that he is leaving his post, that this was an error?

Why is the capital spend in this area so low? The Minister has continued to talk in the Dáil about the money that has been thrown at this issue. The money that has been thrown at it is now lower, with it being a third of what it was in 2008. We have a housing crisis and the money allocated to address it must be increased. Some €11 billion has been taken out of the allocation for housing since the recession began. It must be put back in if we are to solve the housing crisis.

The Minister mentioned those people who say we need loads more money to provide social houses; he was probably referring to the people on the left. He also said the money has to come from somewhere else and he asked if it is to come from the allocation for health or education. The answer is "No", it is not. It could come from the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, which has €3 billion in its cash reserves. Delegates from NAMA will appear before the committee, so I do not want to focus on NAMA but there is money in its cash reserves and the Government could have ordered NAMA to change its remit at any time. The Minister could also consider taxing wealth in this country. That is the other place in this respect. The fiscal space the Minister has talked about cannot resolve the housing crisis or the other issues in health and education. It is too small. The Minister needs to get more wealth and use it for the vast majority in society but he has not been willing to do that. The Minister mentioned the percentage of social housing in Ireland has always been very low but in the 1960s it was almost 20%, so it was not always low.

On the private rented sector, the Minister mentioned today and previously in the Dáil that he is powerless in the face of the Constitution to keep people in their homes. The legal advice he got, I assume from the Attorney General, stating that people could not be kept in their homes if a property is being sold should be published because it has been disputed by others. The Minister mentioned Mr. Edmund Honohan and, hopefully, he will appear before the committee. We are meant to have a session on legal issues that need to be examined to resolve the housing issue.

The Minister did not enact most of the claimed improvements in the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act yet. For example, the provision relating to the statutory declaration landlords are required to provide if they intend to sell a property has not yet been enacted. Perhaps the Minister suddenly introduced a ministerial order to that effect, but it was not enacted when I last checked. The only other element to which the Minister has pointed is the two-year lease. Will he acknowledge that, given that rents will increase by 10% this year, the provision has not worked? The two-year lease provision simply doubled the increase that landlords imposed.

Can the Deputy give the Minister time to respond, as other colleagues wish to contribute?

On the situation in Tyrrelstown, which the Minister mentioned and I thank him for agreeing to meet those concerned, will he ask local authorities to enact a measure to provide that if the council acquires homes that people are already renting, it cannot start to evict those people? A new scheme must be developed to allow people to purchase those houses, which they would be well able to afford because the rent they are paying is twice what they pay on a mortgage.

Will the Deputy give the Minister an opportunity to respond as several other members wish to contribute?

Can I ask a final question?

Very briefly.

It concerns the investment strike of capital among private developers. The chief executive officer of NAMA referred to developers not being happy with a profit of €20,000 to €40,000 on a house that they might build in Dublin. Relying on the private sector to resolve the housing crisis will not work and the Minister has said that developers are hoarding land. Will he accept that the role of the Government has to be much larger than was ever envisaged before?

Would it be possible to bank two or three questions for the Minister to answer? Otherwise, we will very late in the day.

Many members wanted direct answers, but if the answers could be specific-----

I can take them in a group. I do not mind either way.

I will take three contributors. The second one was Deputy Durkan.

I thank the Minister for coming before the committee and giving of his time. I congratulate him and his colleagues on their efforts in Government over the past number of years. It was a period that was fraught with difficulty at times, particularly in respect of access to finance. This must be acknowledged.

I agree with Deputy Coppinger about the extent to which the public housing programme can have an impact on the market. The shift from the direct-build local authority housing programme in the 1980s to a reliance on the private rental sector, supported by the Department of Social Protection, was the wrong decision, and I have spoken about it many times. I believe the evidence is there to support that. There are two issues. One is the immediate emergency. We need to accelerate everything we can do in terms of procedures to ensure we address this issue in the shortest possible period. I ask the Minister to put particular emphasis on that, whether it be by way of direct build, modular housing or acquisition of existing private new or second-hand housing.

The rolling over of property has been a serious feature in making housing very expensive in this country. During the boom, it was not unusual for a site to be acquired for a sum of money and then passed over to a second, a third and a fourth owner, resulting in up to ten times the original cost of the site being borne by whoever was going to buy or build a house on that site. The Chairman and the rest of us all know of instances where this happened. I do not believe we have an obligation to facilitate that kind of thing, because the first priority in respect of those seeking private or public housing must be to make it as affordable as possible.

The use of developed private sites by local authorities was very well applied in times past and was very effective in enabling people on the local authority housing list to build their own homes to their own specifications without impacting on anybody. The next issue is local authority housing loans, which have effectively been gone for years. That was part of the switchover from the public housing programme to a reliance on the private rental sector. It was, as it were, stolen.

We need to plan for the future. The previous plan was to rely on the private sector. This is no reflection on the private sector, but the plan was wrong and could never work. During the 1980s, roughly 1,000 houses became available per annum for that income group - those on the average industrial wage - in my county. That was about 25 years ago. We have nothing to replace that except the private rental sector, which is subject to the fluctuations of the market, which makes it impossible.

I thank the Minister and his team for coming in. I listened to his forthright presentation and was impressed with it because he is telling it as it is. In respect of active land management and how it would work, I presume that is what Deputy Durkan is talking about in respect of serviced sites.

The Minister said that 38% of the cost of a house goes on taxes.

My concern is if we reduce the VAT rate from 13.5% to zero, will we create a lever by which the developer will make the margin? How do we control that? What are the Minister's views on this?

The local authorities are under awful pressure, not so much in trying to provide housing but actually dealing with the housing situation from social workers right through to people declaring as homeless every day. This is not just confined to Dublin or to the cities but happens in every town. Has the Minister any thoughts on how the local authorities could be better equipped with resources to handle that?

Another area where local authorities’ ability is questionable is in how they manage estates once they are built. I have seen numerous cases where fine estates are built but, within weeks, houses are boarded up again. This is a criminal waste of money and public resources.

From his experience of the past 20 months in the Department at the coalface of this problem, does the Minister have any specific further recommendations for the committee or any changes or advice he would offer? I do not need ten recommendations; just two or three would be worthwhile. We do not need to comment on what has happened but on what we can do in the future.

Deputy Coppinger asked about the Attorney General's advice to the Minister and the Cabinet concerning constitutional difficulties. I anticipate the Minister will say that type of advice cannot be made public. As he has been forthright in his responses so far, I might put it another way. If there had been an amendment to the Constitution on a right to housing, does the Minister feel decisions he and the Government made could and would have been somewhat different?

Would they have been more equitable and the better good served?

Yes, probably, but we need to condition that statement. As it would depend on what was changed in the Constitution, one cannot give a definitive answer but I would say “Yes”.

On certain topics, I believe we need to amend the Constitution. I would also be a bit careful because sometimes one can make matters worse. It would depend on how one does it but we need an open discussion on the article in question.

The situation could not get any worse, in fairness.

If there had been a favourable generic amendment to the Constitution on the area in question, I believe it would have it made easier.

On Deputy Coppinger’s question on the target of 35,000 new housing units, 22,300 units will be built or acquired, 50:50 through capital funding through local authorities and through the European Investment Bank, EIB. On top of that, 11,000 units will come through pure leasing and 2,300 through restoring voids, with which we have been incredibly successful. We had to ramp up our building. Whatever anyone says about building houses, they take two to three years to build, except rapid-build housing which we should discuss later.

I did not lay the foundations for any of the houses now being built - I do not mean that literally - and they were commenced by my predecessors. There are 5,000 houses in the process of being built across the country. It takes time to churn it up. Those houses that have been closed off in the past year or so came about because of what was done three years ago.

If we were to produce a large volume of houses immediately in this year, they should have been planned three years ago. The simple fact is we did not have the money for it. We need a continuous pipeline of social housing. I have set out through the social housing strategy how to achieve a pipeline where in excess of 10,000 houses can be built every year. That is where the rebalancing happens but it will not happen overnight. I accept that the number of houses being built is small but the facts are the facts. This year, hundreds of houses will be built in many cases because of work that was done preceding my time in the Department. The year after that, thousands will be built, and the year after that it will be near the figure I want, which is 10,000 houses. That is the way it has to work. We need to discuss rapid building as that is an important sector.

We have spoken about building houses and I agree with some points but in many cases, the local authorities simply buy or, working with the approved housing bodies, lease a property because it is cheaper. Some people have questioned the way in which houses in Ballymun have been put up and we can talk about that. I am fine about it. People are asking why houses are not just bought because that would be cheaper. We are doing that as well on top of everything to create more housing.

The Deputy referred to the capital budget and is right that it is lower than it was in 2008. By 2008, we had seen a decade of the housing capital budget being ramped up because of a significant boom period in the State. The simple fact is we have just emerged from the worst ever economic crisis. In 2014, the capital budget was €299 million; in 2015 it is €430 million; and in 2016 it is €528 million. That is a fairly significant increase by any percentage year-on-year in our current position. In the total budget of the Department for this area, there has been a significant increase. It is now up to €933 million from €583 million in 2014, which is not that long ago.

I will address an issue relating to waiting lists. We have had much discussion in this country about how many people are waiting for social housing and what is the true figure. We have the 2013 figure and the figure given by others when they calculate statistics from local authorities, etc. The housing agency used to do this figure every three years and 2013 was the last time figures were produced. I have now insisted on and initiated a process where it is done every single year because we need that data and what we are really addressing. Analysis in that period has demonstrated that the figure for people seeking social housing and the numbers bandied about simply do not add up. Analysis has been made in which the figures for local authorities is totted up but that does not take into account that some people are on social housing lists for a number of years but do not need it any more. In some cases, people are on housing lists but there is no requirement or they are on the list for other reasons.

There are people, certainly in Dublin, who are on multiple lists or are being double-counted and there are also other issues. That is not to play down the fact that we still have huge figures. This is important information.

Cork city did an analysis of choice-based letting - I want to talk about this later on - which I think should be rolled out across the country. It found there was a 25% drop in the number of people requiring social housing. Once choice-based letting, whereby the properties are put out there, became available, it was found that 40% of the people who were on the original list were not even active. They were not actively looking. It is important that we engage that information.

On ramping up local authority building, which a couple of representatives mentioned, it did take time. I gave co-operation. More than 450 staff have been put into local authorities. I got co-operation from the majority of local authorities, but I was disappointed that some of the recruitment still has not happened. Local authorities got out of social housing and now they have got back into it. They need the personnel to do that, but they have the capacity to do it.

In respect of the percentages of local authority housing, I believe they are quite ambitious. Anyone who looks at them can see the volume of funding that has been allocated to each local authority. I will pick at random. Cork County Council has €80 million up to the end of 2017, Cork City Council has €124 million, Dublin City Council alone has €292 million, and South Dublin County Council has €73 million. If we go down to the likes of Kilkenny, the county council got €43 million. Even a smaller county like Carlow has in excess of €20 million. There is a considerable amount of funding available for local authorities up until the end of next year. Overall, when we look at the total targets in Dublin, it comes to 30% of the total. I will break down the figures if the Deputy wants: 3,347 units in the Dublin City Council area, 1,376 in Fingal, 681 in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, and 1,445 in South Dublin, which makes a total of 6,849.

I have met the representatives of Tyrrelstown. I am quite circumspect about getting into details on this because there are negotiations and discussions going on to which I am privy and I do not want to influence that. I have spoken about the issue with the sale of houses and the article in the Constitution, but in general there are options available to the tenants, working through the local authorities, and I have made sure at a local authority level that they will be facilitated in any way possible. I want to point out one fact that is not widely known. We have to be quite careful because a higher than average percentage of people who are involved in various schemes for purchasing their local authority houses, etc., are now in arrears. We have to be very careful about that.

I agree with Deputy Canney's remarks on the area of land management. He asked me what my recommendations would be and I thank him for asking that. I will do that at the end. I have more than two, by the way. We need better land management. It is a critical issue and it needs to be more co-ordinated. My colleague has maps in respect of the volume of sites and zonings available across Dublin. There are 27,000 houses with planning permission in Dublin. There are also another 20,000 with very little that has to be done. They will probably get planning because the services are there. That is 50,000 houses that can be made available pretty quickly. That raises certain issues. We must find ways in which actively to develop such land.

In respect of the Deputy's question on costs, 38% of the cost of building a house goes to the State. The big one is VAT. There is obviously Part V, which I think I have addressed in a fair way, and the issue of development contributions.

I agree with the Deputy that there is no point in reducing the VAT to zero if that does not get passed on to the house buyer. One must have a process by which one can ensure that happens. In other words, one must have conditions built in, which we did recently with regard to developments in Dublin and Cork, whereby we kept the prices below €300,000 and €250,000. The sale price of a house or apartment must be at a certain level before a developer qualifies for such an exemption. That is what I would recommend. We must map and zone that all over the country so that if a developer is building a house or apartment and wants to avail of a special VAT rate, he or she must, with no underhand stuff, sell the property for a certain amount, depending on the location. That amount should be set at a national level. That would be my recommendation in that regard.

The last question the Deputy asked related to estates. Significant progress has been made in this area. In 2015 approximately 5,000 voids were remediated while in 2016 we have provided funding for a further 1,600. A lot of work has been done in the area of unfinished estates but a perennial issue in this regard is the taking in charge of estates. One of the last items signed off by the Government before the general election was a five-year plan for a fund and a process for the taking in charge of all estates in this country. Estates were put into various categories. Some estates only have minor issues to be resolved relating to kerbs, lighting and so forth but others have much more serious issues with their water and waste systems, for example. A fund has been put in place to deal with all of these matters.

Virtually all of the changes concerning rental space have been put in place and the regulations the Deputy asked about will be signed on Tuesday.

It will be signed on Tuesday.

Yes, because from a legal perspective it took some time to write up those regulations.

That is a positive thing. I am not defensive all the time.

Chairman, can I make a point? The Minister supplied an incorrect figure. He said that 30% was being spent in Dublin, but 60% of the housing need is in Dublin, according to Mr. Cummins who was before this committee on Monday last.

What I said was 30% of the target.

Yes, but 60% of the housing need is in Dublin.

Yes, but I did not give a wrong figure.

The Minister gave a wrong impression.

I thank the Minister for his response. I am now going to take a series of questions because I am particularly anxious before the end of the meeting to deal with the issue of suggestions and recommendations. I do not want that to be bypassed.

I have a number of questions for the Minister relating to his contribution as well as an overall comment. I am not convinced that there is an acceptance of how bad things are. The way we have been dealing with this issue in recent years will not fix the problem. We are not making progress. People do not like to hear the word mentioned in this House, but there has been a neoliberal approach to the delivery of housing which is very problematic. It does not work and we need to do something different.

The Minister spoke about the role of the State and said that the supply of social housing in Ireland has generally been at around 9%. I support the new Central Bank rules because I do not see why we should drive people to despair in the future with mortgage repayments that they cannot meet. However, the flip side of that is the expectation that in the future, the Irish State will have to help approximately 30% of its people with housing. That is a huge game changer. The average figure is 9%, although I know it reached 15% in certain periods during the lifetime of this State.

That is likely to go to 30% and we have to accept that. I ask whether the Minister agrees with that.

The Minister asked if local authorities have the wherewithal to build the housing. Obviously, local authorities are not in a position to directly build. When we talk about directly building local authority housing, we are talking about local authorities organising it and the State paying for it. Obviously they have to be put out to tender and get builders to build it. They do have the capacity to do that.

To be parish pump about it, Wexford County Council has approved 31 units for 2016, 36 for 2017 and 55 house acquisitions for vulnerable groups in 2016 and 40 in 2017. I know two projects that are ready to proceed. Taghmon is ready to start on 16 houses but funding has not been approved. It is a ready to go site but it has not got approved funding. Carrick-on-Bannow is ready to start on ten units but funding has not been approved. Given the demand what is delaying the decision to approve the funding?

The Minister said the waiting list was inaccurate. In Wexford there are 3,800 on the waiting list. If that figure is inaccurate can we get somebody to make it accurate?

What is the figure in Wexford?

That is why it is being done this year.

Okay. The Minister mentioned the site levy of 7% and said he would like to introduce it in 2017. I am glad to hear that. Does the Minister agree that the vacant site levy introduced before Christmas is a joke? The yield from it is so little it will not speed up the development of sites. Is the Minister going to tell me otherwise? If an individual has borrowed the money to land bank, the Minister is not asking that person to pay tax on it or asking to pay a levy. The rate is 0.75% if he owes more than 75% of the money. Of course he owes more than 75% of the money. He would be off his head if he was not borrowing to acquire land for land banking. Will the Minister admit the State has refused to address the problem of land banking? Land banking is probably the biggest problem in terms of affordability around private housing in Ireland. Last week a site for 27 units was sold in Clontarf for which the developer paid more than €220,000 per unit. We have not dealt with the issue. It is an absolute scandal that the State has not dealt with land banking. The Kenny report published in 1974 is gathering dust on the shelves.

The Minister said that nationalising all aspects of housing is not the answer. Nobody is saying it is the answer. We expect the majority of housing still to be in the private sector. However, in the region of 30% of social housing units will need to be provided by the State. The Minister asked where the money would come from. He is probably tired listening to me saying, and I said it in the House yesterday, that if the Government is serious about building social housing through the local authorities it will have to challenge the fiscal rule. Italy, Spain, Lithuania and Austria will all break the fiscal rule this year. Why cannot Ireland do the same? We have a very good reason to do so. France will break it for security reasons because it is dealing with ISIS and we cannot break it to deal with the emergency in housing. I do not understand the reason the State is not challenging the European Union so that we can borrow money at less than 1% to build housing.

The Minister made the point that it takes two or three years to build houses. I am well aware that it takes a long time to do things. I have done it all my life. From start to finish, large projects take between two and three years.

With regard to a site like Taghmon, when the design is completed, planning is approved and funding is approved and ready to go, does the Minister know how long it takes to actually build them? It is about one year and no more - one year.

Add in the other stages. Look at the document.

Huge projects take a long time, but it means that small projects do not. This country is full of small sites. Dublin city has loads of them. Would the Minister not admit that there is a major concentration by local authorities on the big bang effect of big sites? Why are the small sites not happening and why do we not get the small builders back in the game? There are small builders all over the country dying to do work and they are not looking for a profit of €20,000 or €40,000 a unit. The builders I know are probably different from builders that Frank Daly might know but they are not looking for that kind of profit. If they made between €5,000 and €10,000 profit per unit they would be delighted with themselves and more than happy.

Perhaps the Minister could clarify if it is possible to activate a lot of the smaller sites and get the smaller builder back in? However, we are then back to the finance problem again. Can the State start organising finance for smaller builders because the banks will not give finance to them? The banks do not want to lend to them. Most of the building which goes on in this town today is being done by investment funds and the Irish banks are not funding it. However, those guys come up with their own money and they are dominating what is being built at the moment. Developers such as Kennedy Wilson and Hines are building now but they are only building for the rental market and do not have to worry about having to sell the units at a low price.

Time please Deputy.

My final question to the Minister is if he thinks it would be possible for the State to start funding these small projects and to help the builders build housing, be it 50% social, 50% affordable or even private. They need help.

I ask the Minister to bank the questions as we will run out of time if I do not go through the various Deputies.

I am here in place of Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan and I must also attend the Chamber for statements on EU migration and the refugee crisis so I will not repeat points that have already been made here. The discussion has been wide ranging and the Minister has made the point, correctly, that our housing market is a result of political and social choices. That is really, in essence, the project of this committee; to make political and social choices going forward. Having heard what has been said so far, my concern is that repeating the same mistakes will not give a different outcome. From the Minister's comments today, and from much of the documentation I have seen from the Department, it appears that mistakes are being repeated.

The Minister has said that the heart of the matter lies with what the State's role is in housing provision. That is the point. He is correct in saying that the social housing list is not the numbers that are bandied around. There have always been people on the social housing list who, ultimately, may not have wanted a social housing house. They may have been on the list in order to access rent allowance. We all know this, many of us being from a local authority background. However, this is not the issue. Is the social housing crisis worse now than it was a number of years ago when those problems existed? The answer has to be that it is worse. When I was a councillor there were never situations where people got letters telling them their average wait to be accommodated would be ten or 12 years. Does the Minister accept this or does he think we do not have a problem?

The figure of 13,000 given by the Minister - this gets to the heart of the matter - which he says were the number of social housing units provided, is not correct. Some 8,000 of those units were either rent supplement arrangements reclassified as HAP or they were RAS accommodations which were coming on board anyway. These were not new units. If we keep doing that - the Minister said there is no problem with investment - and if one is investing in the private sector to deliver all the time, we will have the same problems. With regard to the pie, I would like to hear the Minister's comments on taking money from other areas. Does he acknowledge that if one accepts the size of the pie, then we are not going to get a solution since the amounts of money needed are quite vast?

I would like the Minister to comment on some direct initiatives because the State has to have a more direct role. For example, a lot of housing stock is underutilised. There are those who want to downsize and so on. Dublin City Council, for example, has a list of approximately 500 people who want to downsize to older people units and single dwellings but they cannot because the unit for older people is not there and because of the one-bed provision and so on. We have stock out there. What of the idea of the State directly encouraging initiatives for people to give up that stock in the way people used to sell their dwellings and give one third to the council in return for being re-accommodated? What of the €100 sites that used to be there? There are a lot of pocket sites held by local authorities. Three or four people could get together and build a house for themselves. This was the old way of doing affordable housing. Unless we tilt the direction back to more State provision, would the Minister not agree that there will not be a way forward on this?

I have two quick questions. The Minister correctly posed the question as to how we make land available. We had the answer to that question in the Kenny report. Has it been looked at really? There was a huge problem in the lifetime of the last Government with the advice of the last Attorney General - I suppose she is still the Attorney General - on constitutional issues. Constitutional issues are only decided by the Legislature and the courts. We need to either test these in the courts or change the Constitution. The Minister and his Government were quite willing to change them on really ridiculous things such as the age of the President. This is more important.

I agree with the Deputy.

Good, we will be all on the same side then when it comes out on that.

My last point concerns rapid builds and the Minister's point about objections from communities to social housing, which is a little unfair. People in many areas would object to any type of housing if a cul-de-sac is being opened up and their whatever is being interfered with. However, the Minister mentioned Beaumont. Would he not accept that it was not sensible to buy a big block for fewer social housing units? It might have been better, and would have been for all sorts of reasons, to buy the whole lot, offer to sell 50% of it for private housing and use that money to acquire social housing in a different area. That is precisely the point about rapid builds. The Minister said, and I would like him to explain it, that the Department is spending money buying houses. We know that. However, if we take the rapid build project the Minister has planned for Balbriggan, he is planning to spend €3 million more on those rapid build units than it would cost to acquire the same number of units across Balbriggan, which would free up that amount of money. Therefore, the Minister is not spending the same amount of money.

The Minister might also deal with the amount of time taken to deliver rapid build houses, which are now not modular units but timber frame houses. If they were to go through the normal planning permission process and so on, they would not necessarily be any quicker than any other timber frame dwellings.

The Minister might hold his replies for a moment. I call Deputy Quinlivan and ask him, as far as possible, to keep to direct questions to the Minister.

I thank the Minister for coming and welcome his statement that the needs assessment will be carried out across all councils but I would have a concern to ensure that it is done accurately. In 2013, when it was carried out in my city of Limerick, 1,690 people disappeared off the list. I believe many of those still had a housing need and that it was not done properly. I would be concerned that if we do a needs assessment, it is done accurately and that we ensure those who are on the list are contacted. I do not believe it was done properly in Limerick. Some people allegedly got one letter, but I believe some people did not get the letter. To this day, we are still dealing with people who believe they are on the housing list who are not on it. I, therefore, am concerned that if we do it that we do it exactly right. It is important that we have a correct list and that we can look at solutions which deal with the number that is actually on the list.

The Minister mentioned the procurement process, as have many other Deputies. I have a concern about it and why it cannot be speeded up. Will the Minister explain some ways in which we could do it faster? On the rapid build houses project in Ballymun, why can we not just change the process quickly to deliver houses more quickly? The Minister stated there were objections to a number of applications and Deputy Daly dealt with that matter very well. There have been objections, but there were also a number of projects and I will mention Limerick again in this regard. We have a regeneration project but, seven years into it, no houses have been delivered in St. Mary's Park or in the Ballinacurra Weston area. There would be no objection to any plans for those areas. We could have built houses and put people into them years ago. We reviewed the project in 2014, as the Minister knows, but we still have not built a significant number of houses in most of those regeneration areas.

There are about 50 houses built in the Moyross area but we have knocked approximately 300 houses there. The project has not delivered what it was supposed to deliver.

The Minister said the Department housing strategy up to 2020 was the largest social housing investment in the history of the State. I was interested in that comment when I read it. The Minister repeated his statement in the Dáil on a number of occasions. Will the Minister detail the capital spend per year over the six years of the strategy and what will be spent year-on-year? Will the Minister compare that with the capital spent in the six years prior to the strategy being implemented? He might even go back to 2007 or 2008, etc.

Let us consider some of the projects the Department has undertaken. There is one in my area, although I have no wish to be harping on about Limerick all the time. One project was supposed to deliver 11 houses in what was called the Shelbourne Square area of Limerick. Some private developer popped in and bought it before we could. It was a NAMA-type property. Do we know of any others throughout the State were that has happened? Are there projects on this list which will not be built or delivered for us? In this case there were 11 units in Limerick. Will they be replaced by another 11 units or something similar? Is that happening to other local authorities throughout the State?

We have a deep concern because the Department's housing strategy was reliant on delivering up to 80% private rented properties. Again, we saw figures for Limerick yesterday and there were five one-bedroom apartments available. The rent sought was between €600 and €750 for one-bedroom apartments in Limerick. Given a rent supplement of €375 for a single person, that is not really going to work.

I have a concern about some of the projects. Obviously we want to get them delivered as fast as we can. However, in Hospital, County Limerick, we are building 20 units at a cost of €185,000 each. That figure comes from dividing 20 into the money that has been allocated for the project. However, it is possible to buy a house in Hospital at the moment for €75,000. A number of houses are available in that area for €75,000, some €100,000 cheaper than the cost of the houses in the capital project. The Minister said himself that these figures do not add up. Is there provision under this review whereby if we were going to build something and the money has been allocated then we can simply buy available houses? We can deliver the housing far quicker that way. Obviously, if we can build houses, it is far better because we are putting people back to work as well.

Another issue was raised and there is some confusion about it. The credit unions have been in touch with all Deputies. They have sent their housing policy in to us along with offers of moneys that we could access. Can the Minister update us on what contacts we have had with the credit unions?

I do not mean to interfere but the committee had previously arranged to meet the credit unions specifically on that issue.

That is my final comment. I will wait for that.

As a committee we will meet the credit unions on that. I will continue, Minister, if you do not mind, and we will bank the questions.

I thank the Minister for coming in. I am going to have to leave shortly to speak so I apologise in advance for that. I have some brief questions because many of the points have been made and there is no point repeating them.

My first question relates to the targets for year 1 of the strategy. Is it possible to get a county-by-county breakdown? I appreciate the Minister might not have that information to hand, but can we get it forwarded to the committee? Can we get the figures for housing assistance payment tenancies? How many of these are new tenancies? How many are recycled and involve people coming from existing rent supplement schemes? How many are actually coming off the list or coming from homeless or potentially homeless scenarios?

I have some other questions relating to the homeless situation. Many people who are experiencing homelessness have highlighted the immediate measures we could take. An important step is to decide the immediate measures we can take. One possibility is raising rent supplement limits. I do not believe we should do that in isolation - that would be a disaster in terms of rents increasing for everyone. However, it could be linked to rent certainty. What is the Minister's opinion on raising rent supplement along with implementing rent certainty? We need some immediate measures in this area.

I have made a point previously about rural homelessness. It is very different to homelessness in an urban area. For example, in my constituency there is a good mix between urban and rural because it includes Carlow and Kilkenny.

Many people experiencing homelessness in a rural area cannot take up the option of emergency accommodation because it is so far from where their children are at school or if they have part-time work they cannot travel. Has anything been done in the Department to address that specifically because many small villages and towns do not have hotel and bed and breakfast accommodation? For example, in Kilkenny there are three facilities that provide emergency accommodation but someone who is homeless in Urlingford or Callan is a 15 or 20-minute drive away.

The Minister mentioned private property in his statement. We all know of properties in our towns, villages and cities that have been empty for ten, 15 or 20 years. I know property rights are an issue but surely given that there is such a housing crisis we should be considering how to acquire those properties, refurbish and use them. The Minister also spoke about large developments of social housing but there are empty houses all around the country that we could consider taking over. There must be something we can do despite the property rights because not only is it bad for every estate to have empty houses because that leads to anti-social behaviour but it would be better for everyone if someone lived there. That would also help to address the housing and homelessness crisis.

In response to Deputy Funchion's last question on property rights, that touches on Article 43. I have a degree of sympathy with her question but we also need real data and there are specific questions in the census, which will come through in a few months and will help with this. Working with local authorities we will be able to zone in on empty, derelict properties. We might be able to put a more comprehensive plan in place as a result of that.

Rural homelessness is an issue and, in fairness to Mr. Kenny and the team in the Department, we have plans in place across the country which give local authorities the capacity to source properties as close as possible to the individuals involved. In many cases the needs are complex but working with the HSE and other agencies they have the capacity to source properties and those people are treated as a priority. They have the capacity to do that and will be facilitated in whatever way possible.

I take what the Deputy says about rent supplement. It is a very interesting comment, which I will note. The Deputy asked for statistics for targets. The document I issued shows the targets up to 2017. It is a two year list. We will break it down by year if necessary. Carlow has a funding allocation of €20 million and Kilkenny has €43.5 million.

I understand that but-----

As for the number of houses, there are 435 in Carlow and 686 in Kilkenny.

There is a lot of information in that document which I am putting out there to inform people. Local authorities can acquire private property and have done so under a range of other measures.

I want to ensure that I get to a number of the questions. I am going to hop between questions because there is overlap. Deputy Quinlivan asked about the capital spend and I have quoted the €4 billion, which is the largest amount ever allocated for social housing from a multi-annual perspective.

Wait a second. It is.

It is a third of the figure for 2008 so how could it be the largest? The Minister keeps saying this.

The question I asked relates to what we are going to spend over the next six years and what was spent over the six years prior to the strategy being implemented.

I will answer the question if I am allowed to do so. We are working in a spirit of co-operation.

It is the largest amount announced in respect of a multi-annual plan for social housing. When the country was bursting at the seams with money, of course there were larger individual amounts every year. However, the spending at that time was not multi-annual in nature or planned over a period. That is simple fact and it is what I have always said. The figures are all there in respect of capital planning if the Deputy wants me to produce them. In 2016 €2.9 billion is committed under the capital plan. The figures are all publicly available. I will send them on to the Deputy rather than taking up more time here.

If Deputy Quinlivan has specific issues concerning Limerick, I would be glad-----

I was not specifically asking about Limerick. Is it happening in other places as well? Is there a context?

Primarily not, but let me just say this. It is very important.

The key thing is that there are still 11 units gone-----

Yes, but here is the issue. Does the Deputy know what he needs to do there?

He needs to go back to his local authority and ask what other projects it is putting forward. He knows from this document----

I know the projects, yes. I am aware-----

The Deputy is well aware. Limerick City and County Council has just under €60 million to spend. By the way, it should decide the projects. I agree with Deputy Wallace; the more smaller projects are put forward, the better. I will come back to that. It is obvious that there is an information gap out there. If those 11 units are gone, and there may be other cases across the country although I am not aware of them-----

I do not expect the Minister to know them all.

-----they can be replaced. Local authorities put forward the projects. The Department does not put them forward. That is the way it has to be.

May I just clarify that? The Minister is going to give us a spend of that money anyway, so we can go with another project.

Of course. Local authorities make the decisions. We administer the approval process.

My understanding was that a local authority approaches the Minister in respect of sites it possesses and that he then comes forward with proposals.

No, the local authorities always put forward the projects. They have their funding, which I have outlined, for 2017.

In the context of the issues for those on housing lists, the choice-based letting that happened in Cork is a good example. Choice-based letting should be rolled out across the country. Let me just say that out straight. It may need to be tweaked a little or whatever - I am open to that. It is a good policy. When people are written to by local authorities and they do not engage, I do not know what local authorities are meant to do. There has to be some form of responsibility for re-engaging. Choice-based letting is actually a very good policy. It shortens the period for which houses are left to be viewed by people, etc. People get to look at properties, to know where they are going and so on. It removes all the issues about people looking at locations and all of that sort of stuff. It gives way more flexibility. That is important.

I want to come back to some of the other questions that were asked. I was very much taken by Deputy Wallace's contribution.

Maybe Deputy Wallace should flip sides and be interviewed here, given his experience.

That might happen next week.

There are a few things that could be ruled out.

I apologise to the Minister.

That also goes for a few other people in the room.

I find myself in agreement with a number of the Deputy's points, but not others. I agree with the Central Bank rules. They may need to be tweaked and definitely needed to be monitored but, in general, they are correct because the price of houses cannot rise to €500,000 and we cannot have people worrying about how they will pay for such houses over 30 years.

We cannot go back to a boom-and-bust situation where developers and builders entered the market and people ended up with large mortgages which they were unable to pay. That leads to social issues, such as estates not being finished, and developers and builders owing the State millions, if not billions, of euro which the chances of recovering are very low. We cannot go back to that and allow the people who engaged in such activity to re-enter the market. We cannot allow profit margins to be with the developers and builders. I acknowledge that they have to make a profit, but we should act on behalf of those who need housing.

Deputy Wallace asked about the local authority process. I was very taken by the question. I have changed the system. I ask the Deputy to revert to his local authority and ask it why it is taking so long. I presume the Deputy has read the report on all the projects in Wexford. They include: St. Aidan's Road in Wexford town, comprising 14 units; Barrystown in Wellingtonbridge, comprising 16 units; Ballyowen in Gorey, comprising nine units; Killeens, comprising ten units; Cherryorchard in Enniscorthy comprising eight units; and others. They are all small projects and there is no reason in the world for them not to proceed as quickly as possible. They have all been sanctioned.

Committee members may not be fully aware that I changed the process by which approval for small projects is granted. Virtually all of the projects I mentioned would come under that process. Smaller projects previously had to engage in a four-stage process with the Department, but there is now only one stage for projects comprising fewer than 20 units. Such action was necessary.

I ask Deputy Wallace to allow me to finish because he asked many questions. Local authorities have the capacity to engage in that process. There is an information gap or misinformation about what is happening. The capacity of local authorities to take control through a one-step process for small projects is in place. I instigated and demanded the process because I agreed that the process needed to be speeded up.

There are requirements for planning, design and all of that. Local authorities have the capacity to engage with such projects but very few, if any, take up the chance of engaging with smaller projects through that process. That is a question the committee may want to address. The process has been in place for a while, but local authorities have not engaged. It is something which will be very fruitful into the future.

The Deputy is correct about social housing percentages. Of course the figure of 9% has to increase, and that is why we have put in place a new process. In regard to the vacant site levy, I disagree with the Deputy. Local authorities are actively planning for how they are going to use the process and are very happy with it. I speak as a person who wanted to do a lot more, but I have already outlined how I was prevented from being as ambitious as I wanted to be.

On the issue of funding, it is not for me to suggest, but perhaps the committee should bring in the outgoing or incoming Minister for Finance to discuss housing.

To be helpful to the Minister, depending on the timing, that is our intention.

That would give us a fuller picture. There may also be others who need to come in.

I will respond to the other issues that were raised by Deputy Daly. I disagree with the Deputy on Beaumont. Human beings can object and that is their right and it is fine, but at times I find it absolutely incredible that public representatives of all hue and cry can, for political reasons, shout out about social housing requirements, or, indeed, private housing, which creates more stock, facilitates everything, creates competition and ensures we have more supply, and then go along on the other side and, for many reasons which I would not agree with, object to the same ones. I find it incredible and, let us call a spade a spade, in many cases it is hypocrisy. I am not saying in every case that it is so. I could list off a whole pile of these throughout the country, not just in Dublin, where that is the case. There is very little social housing in Beaumont. I agree with the Deputy on social mix and the requirements. I accept that and it is the way we should plan for the future.

That is not what I said.

Within that area, the acquirement of those houses meets both the intensity that is professed and good practice. One cannot, on the one hand, say that we need more social housing and that we need to get as much as possible for people who obviously need it, many of whom are in difficult situations, and on the other hand say "not in my back yard" or that it does not meet a particular requirement

I have to correct the Minister.

I am not talking about that.

I am not talking about Deputy Daly now.

I am not saying that. Perhaps the Minister misunderstood. The precise point was exactly-----

I did not misunderstand.

-----that the Minister was scapegoating residents and communities-----

-----for the housing problem.

I am not scapegoating anyone. By the way-----

The Minister is caricaturing what I was saying.

I am not caricaturing it.

The Deputy did not let me finish.

I am sorry but I am actually speaking next.

I am finishing on Deputy Daly's points. One has to remember that from the Department's point of view, it is the local authority that comes forward and actually decides. It is the local authority that feels it is appropriate and the right thing to do. From that point of view, we have to work with the local authorities to ensure that this happens. On the recommendations, we need to decide as a body politic will we work together on this and not be saying one thing on one side and another thing on the other side.

The Deputy asked about rapid builds. I think she is using the figures for the houses in Poppintree for Balbriggan.

Where is the Deputy getting the figures from? The point is that obviously there is a tendering process involved in this and that will all come through, but I am very happy with the rapid build houses. I wanted houses that lasted longer than 30 years, perhaps for 60 or 70 years. I wanted an AA rating and I also wanted to ensure they were built as quickly as possible. They are the fastest built houses in the history of the State. That is the simple fact of the matter. Part of the solution into the future is to create the protocol, which has been put in place, to ensure we can do this in multiple places throughout the country. There are economies from doing so.

I am sorry but I must leave.

No problem. Perhaps the Chairman wants to take another round.

There are three further members offering. I ask members to keep an eye on the time. We will resume our deliberations at 2 p.m. and should try to conclude this session by 1 p.m.

I thank the Minister and his team for attending. The Minister said his Department cannot control all the factors affecting housing, which I understand. Deputy Funchion spoke about rent supplement. I represent the people of Waterford city and county. The rent supplement in Waterford is €520. That is one of the issues because people cannot rent houses in the area for less than €650 or €700. There will need to be joined-up thinking involving both Departments.

The chief executive of Roscommon County Council appeared before the committee on Tuesday. He pointed out that local authorities are not developers. His submission stated, "Even if we had the adequate resource to build on our lands, the regulations stipulate that we can only build 10-15% for social housing." I am very concerned about that because the Department is putting most of its eggs into on basket in terms of the local authorities supplying housing and the chief executive of Roscommon County Council stated, on behalf of the County and City Management Association, that they can only build 10% to 15% for social housing. As a short-term fix, does the Minister see merit in putting extensions on existing social houses within local authority stock in order to meet family demands as opposed to waiting two years to move them into other houses? I refer to extending houses that are not for people with health-specific problems. That should definitely be considered because it would be a quicker fix.

I feel we missed an opportunity to support social housing through the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. The fund will spend €750 million of its current €3 billion cash balance before the end of 2016 on a range of projects. It missed the opportunity to invest some of that money in social housing.

I welcome the Minister's comments as to what would make a difference.

I missed the Deputy's final remark. To what entity did she refer?

The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. There is €3 billion in the fund, with €750 million allocated for a range of projects. I hope we will get a chance to ask questions of the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, on this. He decided against putting any of that money into social housing. I welcome the suggestions made by the Minister, Deputy Kelly, at the end. He has been in the position for the past two years and understands how it works.

I agree with what Deputy Wallace said. To bring matters back to the parish pump, I live in Portlaw where eight or ten new houses are to be built. I know ex-Deputy Coffey-----

He is probably Senator Coffey by now.

I do not think so.

We saw the plans in the last week of May 2015. These eight to ten houses are being built on a local authority site where there are already 20 houses. The land is there. There are no objections. It is has now been 11 months. The council approved the project but not a sod has been turned. I am not a builder, but I would have thought that if the money is there and 11 months have passed, should a sod not have been turned at this stage? I do not know.

I am prepared to build them.

I thank the Minister. Did he get those five points?

I thank the Minister and his officials for coming in to help us with our work. He will be aware that we are tasked with making recommendations on housing and homelessness. To do that, we obviously need to understand the extent of the problem and our programme of work will assist us in that. The purpose of the Minister's attendance is for him to tell us if there is a plan in place. Is it adequate to address the problem? Is it timely enough? We could spend time going back to analyse why the pipeline was and is empty.

If it is not timely, can parts of it be fast-tracked or accelerated? Is it properly resourced? Is funding a problem? Are all the players aligned, for example, the Minister, the Department, the local authorities and all of the other elements? Can we improve on the plan as a committee? Obviously, we will take note of what the Minister has to say on that. Most critically, given the emergency that exists, what do we do while we are waiting for the plan to be delivered, if we are talking about a two and a half to three year timelag?

I want to pick up on some of the Minister's remarks. It is said the construction industry will only deliver 50% of what it needs to deliver, so what is being done to address that? Changes are proposed to Part V from 20% social and affordable housing, with the opportunity for local authorities to get money instead, to a new regime of 10%. At a personal level, I would be disappointed if it does not remain at 20%, with that 20% perhaps being social housing. Does the Minister believe the 20% was a barrier to delivering housing? If so, are we seeing any improvements?

The Minister talked about the need for local authorities to be incentivised to provide land. How might that work and can the Minister share his thoughts with us to help us with our future work? The Minister highlighted the issue of the supply of affordable housing. Given people are paying such high rents, they are not able to save for deposits. What does the Minister see as a solution to this problem?

The Minister said any input cost reduction must go to homeowners, and I absolutely agree with him on that. However, will that ever be possible given that, in the past, there were first-time buyer grants and the amount always ended up being added on to the cost of the property. Will there ever be a solution to that issue?

What plans has the Minister to address the issue of the powers of the Private Residential Tenancies Board when a property is sold? Can anything be done in that area?

The Minister referred to the timelag of two and a half years but he also talked about buying and leasing during that lag period. Is this buying and leasing option realistic, given the supply shortage, and does that impact further on the dysfunctional market?

Most of the key areas have been covered and I will not go back over them, but I want to focus on a couple of points. The 10% to 15% target for the local authorities in regard to social housing is an area that has to be reconsidered. No one is arguing for 100% large estate builds but there is a problem if the local authorities are heavily involved in building that 10% to 15%, and I think this should be looked on as a limit.

I want to give the Minister my personal thoughts on this and get his view. The local authorities entering into the market, buying houses on an ever greater scale, even at this moment are beginning to create a distortion in that part of the market in which they are trying to buy. I have been contacted by people who, on a number of occasions, have lost out to the local authority - these would be people who were trying to buy at a particular price point. It is a supply-side issue. We need to build, and I know that, but if the local authorities enter too much on the buying side, there is a problem, so that balance needs to be looked at.

I am not looking to have a row with the Minister. I have met him on many occasions and respect him. However, as a former councillor who has voted for every single Part VIII that came before my council, I do not like terminology that refers to, in particular, hypocrisy on the part of public representatives who make a decision for what they believe to be legitimate reasons, even if the Minister said this only refers to some of them.

A councillor can be 100% in favour of the principle, and probably every elected representative is, and still have a right as a public representative to examine any issue that comes before him or her and make a decision.

I accept that.

Where council officials come back with a proposal that an elected representative examines and genuinely decides he or she cannot support, that does not mean that he or she is hypocritical. That was a wrong choice of word. Public representatives, particularly at council level, are struggling with this on every occasion this arises. I say that as someone who was quite willing to support the Part VIII schemes of my former council and I believed that what we are doing is the right thing in the process. However, I would not classify my colleagues who opposed them as having any motive other than the fact that they believed they had a problem with the specific proposal.

Before the Minister makes his final response, I wish to make one or two brief points. He might address Deputy Brendan Ryan's question inquiring if there are specific actions or steps we could take to front-load any of the supply? I take account of the Minister's point about the process, but there is an emergency and that was the context of the Deputy's question.

Deputy Brophy made a point that is worthy of reflection and I saw the Minister nod his head in response to it. In his opening statement he spoke about people who might be earning the average industrial wage of €32,000 buying a €200,000 property. That is what is being bought by local authorities in the suburbs. There is that competition in the Dublin market between those houses going from potentially private first-time buyers into social housing. That is the point the Deputy was making. Ultimately, there is a total supply and capacity issue.

We all know that.

I am only making the point that there is a balance to be met here if, ultimately, local authorities have deeper pockets than first-time buyers. I am not ruling it out but the Minister needs to be conscious of the point Deputy Brophy made. We are meeting people affected by this.

On the rapid build housing, which we have all learned not to call modular, we have been educated on that.

That is brain control.

The Minister might comment on its value for money and the cost-effectiveness of it in comparison to other types of housing. The Minister has the floor.

I will deal with some recommendations at the end of this session.

I will start by responding to the last speaker's questions as they are freshest in my mind. I would never want to fight with Deputy Brophy either. I stand over what I said. I was very conditional in what I said. I did not say it was everyone. I respect that everyone has a choice to make in every individual situation. This is not confined to local authorities. It might be more prevalent in places other than in local authorities. I have found in the overwhelming majority of cases that councillors have been of the Deputy's view when he was a member of a local authority. I know of many, dare I say it, brave councillors who would face a fairly significant crowd and stand by their principle and I know of many who did that recently, and I truly respect them. It would be wrong of me to say that I have not experienced the other case as well where people have lectured or waxed lyrical about the need for housing in a certain area and demanded such provision and then, when a proposal was put forward, had the opposite opinion. I am not talking about a generic case of someone opposing something because they believe in it and still demanding social housing. That is one thing, and that is fine, but where an elected representative says that social housing is needed in a certain area, they get a page spread about that in their local newspaper, and when a proposal is made two weeks or one month later, they oppose it. That is contradictory whatever way one looks at it. I accept these are all individual cases. I am not talking generally. I am not talking about everyone. In the majority of cases this does not happen, but it does happen on occasion and there is no point in saying that it does not.

I very much take the Deputy Brophy's point regarding local authorities entering the market. A few members, including Deputy Brendan Ryan, mentioned this. To be fair to them, local authorities do not enter the market in many different areas. For instance, they do not enter where first-time buyers are actively seeking to buy and so on.

If they find out it is a first-time buyer, they generally pull out. There is a balancing act here and the Deputy knows what it is. We will not have the supply coming on stream for a couple of years so we need to supply houses so they need to use their judgment there. There is an element of trust in respect of local authorities using their judgment to go out and get houses but I take all the points that have been made. It is a well-made point because it is obviously pushing it up on others but the guidelines around how to do involve not hitting first-time buyers, actively observing the area and ensuring they do that.

The question of the 10% to 15% is one for my successor, whoever he or she may be. It might be the Deputy. It could be anyone.

I do not think so.

There has been much commentary about rapid builds. We have plans for 500 of these. A lot of learning was accrued from the first set of them but they are excellent houses and the fastest ever built. To be frank, one pays for time. Another tender is out at the moment and I believe it will create other economies and learnings that will ensure that there are even more savings. I understand there is greater competition this time around. Last time around, there was only one respondent. It was a case of either do it or do not do it. As we are sitting here, 22 families are viewing the houses they have been allocated today. We all talk about the need to do this. In fairness, there are 22 families with children viewing the houses today. That is the pendulum. I believe that will certainly work its way through and that it is a very progressive thing to do.

In respect of Deputy Butler's question on rent supplement, if we are to have a housing Minister, there is an issue relating to the protocol, the 7,670 people who came in through the upfills and the 2,030 people through the threshold who received an increase when they went to their community welfare officer. This debate is one we have had many times. I have heard varying views on it today. Does one chase the landlord, do something similar to the Central Bank rules on housing or leave it like that?

The Deputy referred to what the chief executive of County and City Management Association said. He is right because it is not just social housing. It involves the approved housing bodies doing their work and leasing but it also involves the private sector so it is a pie mix.

Local authorities have some discretion when it comes to funding to extend houses. Perhaps my successor should look at a specific scheme which will keep people in their houses that is just dedicated to extending houses. I would take that as another suggestion.

When the Minister for Finance appears before the committee, he will deal with the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. The Deputy's last question concerned local authorities. Deputy Wallace was going to jump in and build them. Local authorities have all the control as regards getting them built as quickly as possible. Members should trust me when I say that we push them all the time to deliver units as quickly as possible. There was a major issue when I took over this Department. They needed staff and they needed them quickly. This is why over 450 staff had to be allocated. To be honest, I obviously took-----

Is the Minister saying there is no issue regarding money and that it is available to local authorities to allow them to build anything they want?

Deputy Wallace has the document in front of him. He should read it.

They tell me they are waiting on money.

They are not waiting on money. Let us be honest because this is a myth.

I am only telling the Minister what they are telling me.

Look at Wexford. Wexford has €25.5 million. I will not be doing it but if I was there and some other local authority did not spend its money, I would be happy to move even more to Wexford.

To be helpful to this process, the Minister has set out one side while Deputy Wallace has a different opinion. That needs to be followed up and is part of the process in which we are engaging.

I want to finish off as I do not want to leave out my party colleague, Deputy Brendan Ryan. If I did so, I would be in awful trouble. Also - not because he is my party colleague - he did make some good points.

At the end of all of this, there is an issue the committee should bear in mind. Earlier, I spoke about the various pieces of the jigsaw and the range of components. It is important if one can create a process whereby, whoever is in charge in the future, will ensure all the components are aligned and facing in the same direction. Within our domain, we have done our lever, for want of a better phrase.

The construction industry question relates to the land and costs issues which I spoke about earlier. The 38% of the cost of building a house going to the State is an issue on which this committee will have to make some recommendation.

The real issue with Part V was that in many cases money was taken instead of the 20% housing provision. I did not agree with that and stopped it. I also changed it so that now the developer has to hand over an actual house rather than a site. In an expanding economy and if conditions change, maybe that should change. This needed to be addressed to get building going, however.

There need to be future proposals for local authorities to be incentivised to provide land. However, the amount of land local authorities have is often underestimated. It is not a panacea as there are some local authorities which need to purchase land. An official is here with maps if members wish to check. They can also check them online on the Department’s website.

I began a process to subsidise an affordable housing package which was passed by the Cabinet before the general election. This needs to be expanded in the future and there is a fund towards it.

We made the change that a landlord now has to sign a declaration if he or she is selling a house. If it is found that he or she has not done so, the Private Residential Tenancies Board can effectively deal with that and the tenant can actually go back into the house. There is an issue with Article 43 of the Constitution.

Can a period spent in the private rental sector be used by local authorities when determining eligibility for a loan? If a person is able to rent in the private sector on his or her own account without subsidisation, he or she should be eligible for a local authority loan.

Regarding shared ownership loans, the rental part of the equity should become the subject of tenant purchase schemes in the same way as tenant purchase schemes have applied to the total value of a local authority house.

From the outset of the meeting, the Minister indicated he had some specific recommendations he wanted to make. We would like to hear those.

First, as a country we need to set output targets for total housing, both social and private. I strongly recommend that it be done as part of the recommendations from the committee. We need to consider in a constructive way how land is being managed or made available for social housing. Effectively, we need an asset management system nationwide relating to housing and how houses are managed. We need to look at Article 43 in an open way. I repeat that neither I nor anybody here has all the answers, but it is worth discussing. I absolutely believe that a housing Minister would be a good idea if he or she has all the levers I have spoken about ad nauseam in here; if he or she does not, frankly, it would amount to pure tokenism.

I will run through a few other issues. Choice-based lettings should be brought in nationally for all local authorities. There should be a national system. The example in Cork is excellent, and I complimented the two individuals who ran it, but we should introduce the process nationally. It is evidence-based and a good policy. We have started a process where houses are not just voids but are derelict. That should be concluded, as it would bring back some more stock. Local authorities must take some ownership and embrace the changes brought about in building small numbers of units across the country. They have the capacity through one step to do this. The census will help local authorities in dealing with vacant houses across the country that are not being used. There are a number of relevant tax schemes, including the home renovation scheme and the housing assistance payment, or rental accommodation scheme tax breaks. A scheme using such processes would be a progressive step.

The current housing issue is very difficult and I absolutely believe we must consider how to cut the cost of building. This relates both to the State side, which must lead, and also the developer, material and builder side. It should be across the board, as it is a real issue, particularly given the conditioning that exists because of Central Bank rules, with which I agree. There is a real issue from a political perspective in ensuring that everybody from the body politic can work together from local authority level up to here in the provision of both private and social housing. In that sense, local authorities in particular will have to work on the policies and help to ensure their implementation to a greater degree.

This committee should make some recommendations on the future role of NAMA. The members will be delighted to hear me say that. We must accept where NAMA came from and the boundaries of its commercial mandate. It was set up when the Chairman's party was in government.

Certainly there are assets, knowledge and so on that need to be utilised. That needs to happen. A number of leasing schemes that have been brought forward through my Department regarding the involvement of private investment need to be concluded.

The issue of credit unions has not been raised as I hoped it would be. I met with the credit unions and I would love to see them engaged. Let me just nail one myth: I am not stopping it. They have to get sign-off from the regulator. When they get sign-off from the regulator, they can come back and there will be full engagement with whoever my successor is, I presume. That needs to happen.

I believe the housing needs assessment, which will state how many people are in need of housing and will happen year-on-year, is needed to manage the process and the decision-making into the future because we are shooting in the dark. We have the 2013 figures and then we have the 2015 figures, but nobody knows if the latter are accurate or not because they are taken from local authorities and for all the reasons I outlined earlier.

I thank the Minister and my colleagues. I thank the Minister and his staff for attending today and for his direct and forthright replies. From the committee's point of view - I want to be helpful - the Minister made some specific suggestions. Towards the end he talked about a possible future role for NAMA and the credit unions. It is the intention of this committee to meet with both of those very shortly. I do not want him to feel that what he said is being taken in isolation. It will be pursued and the response from the credit unions, NAMA, the Minister for Finance or whoever will be explored. The Minister's replies and responses were direct and helpful but they are not taken in isolation. We will be challenging others on those.

It was a meaningful contribution. We appreciate it and I thank the Minister for his attendance today.

Sitting suspended at 1.05 p.m. and resumed at 2.05 p.m.
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