Eoin Ó Broin
Dublin Mid-West · Sinn Féin · Ireland
“It is disappointing that, when several journalists have contacted the Government and the Department looking to confirm on the record that HAP and RAS tenants are not included - we know that they are not - and set out why and if that will be reconsidered, instead of giving a straight answer that, yes, they have been excluded, and explainin…”
“Will it try to remove survivors when they chain themselves to the gates in protest, as they have said they will, or will it finally listen to them and hear their calls for respect, justice and truth? Will it buy the Bessborough site and stop this outrage from happening?”
“According to the latest summary of social housing needs assessments, 61,000 households are on council waiting lists, although we know a large number of them are single people. About 49,000 households at the end of last year were on HAP, while there were about 7,500 private sector RAS recipients of the 14,000.”
“We are setting out five specific sets of circumstances where that would be permissible. Under our scheme, the person moving from Youghal to Clonakilty would have to have a specific reason like taking up a job or education in Clonakilty or accessing long-term medical treatment, etc.”
“First, importantly it would be for both people on the list and people in receipt of social housing support, such as HAP and RAS. It is not just the 61,000 households on our council lists but also the 55,000 or so households in HAP or private sector RAS.”
“Sure. I thank the Minister of State for his reply. My natural disposition as a person is to treat people at face value, but ten years in this House has made a bit of a cynic of me.”
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“What an utter shambles. In my entire time in Dáil Éireann, I have never witnessed a more haphazard, ramshackle, back-of-the-envelope process for putting in place widespread reforms that are going to impact tens of thousands of people. While I understand Ministers and Ministers of State have to come here and defend this farce, privately they must be absolutely reeling. The credibility of the Government's housing policy has once again been exposed as an absolute sham. Only five months into the job, the Minister's own credibility has been badly damaged. This is not just my view. Listen to what the industry, media and commentators are saying. In fact, some of the Minister's own backbenchers were being quoted in the newspapers last weekend. I have to say this is an incredibly sorry tale.”
“Some rents will increase immediately and others over time at an even greater rate than has been the case. All the while, house prices, rents and homelessness are rising and the Government continues to fail and slow down the delivery of social and affordable homes. People have had enough. They are taking to the streets in Dublin today, and at the National Monument in Cork at 2 p.m. Saturday. The Community Action Tenants Union, CATU, will hold a protest in Dublin on 5 July. There will be more and more until the Government changes the policy or, ultimately, people change the Government. It is one of the other, and people have come outside the House today to say they want to change and the Government either listens or it goes.”
“He has completely ignored the Housing Commission's call for a housing delivery oversight executive with emergency powers, underpinned by legislation. The Minister is giving us a toothless tiger in the form of a housing activation office, and he could not even put the head of that body in place. In what is probably one of the most bizarre spectacles I have experienced in my time as a TD tracking Simon Coveney, Eoghan Murphy and the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, the Government has introduced the most haphazard change to the rent pressure zones, an imperfect protection in the first place. The Government has changed its story day after day and the fact the Minister is shaking his head means that I wonder whether he fully understands the implications for tens of thousands of renters of what he intends to do.”
“The Minister also needs to reintroduce a temporary and emergency ban on no fault evictions now, because the number of people entering emergency accommodation is too great and too few are able to exit. That is the core of the motion before us today. That is the motion that the thousands of people, supported by ICTU, the entire trade union movement, civil society and others are supporting as we speak. The Minister has been in office for five months and we can already start to see the damage he and the people around him are doing to our housing system. I have already mentioned that he has cut funding for vital homeless prevention schemes. For the life of me, I cannot understand how that could be his first act.”
“Stronger taxes on vacancy, more efficient use of compulsory purchase orders and better funding for local authorities for bringing homes back into use are required. Instead of doing what it has done last week and will do in the autumn, namely jacking up rents in the private rental sector even more, the Government should protect renters from rent increases and reduce the cost of rents while increasing supply of genuinely affordable social and cost rental homes. Instead of cutting funding for vital homeless prevention schemes, one of the Minister's first acts, he should instead restore and increase funding for the tenant in situ scheme, the housing first scheme and others.”
“It calls on the Government to take a number of emergency actions now to reverse the damage the Minister and his colleagues have been doing and continue to do to people's housing situation. In advance of the finalisation of the Government's plan, it needs to increase investment in and the target for the delivery of social and affordable homes. It is not just about money; it is also about reform in how those homes are delivered, a problem the Government continues to conceal from the House but everybody knows exists. The Government needs to take more direct action to support local authorities, in particular, to be able to bring vacant and derelict council and private homes back into use.”
“As we speak, there are several thousand people outside, comprising trade unionists, workers for homeless charities, housing rights activists, students, political parties, renters, aspiring home buyers and people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. I left them moments ago. They are gathered together as part of the Raise the Roof campaign to declare very clearly and loudly that like its predecessor, this Government's housing policy is failing, enough is enough and it is now time for emergency action. That is why Sinn Féin, joined by the Social Democrats, the Labour Party, People Before Profit-Solidarity and other Independents have come here today with a joint motion. The joint motion is very clear and straightforward.”
“I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes that: — the housing and homelessness crisis is getting worse; — house prices, rents, council waiting lists and homelessness are all rising; — the Government continue to miss their social and affordable housing target, targets that are too low to begin with; — tens of thousands of homes are lying vacant and derelict in every city and county; — the lack of affordable homes, particularly for essential workers and low paid workers, close to their workplaces, is impacting on the delivery of public services and undermining economic competitiveness; — an entire generation of young people are locked out of affordable homes with the highest levels of emigration since 2015; — growing numbers of people approaching pension age are living in expensive and insecure rental accommodation fearful of their future; — the student housing crisis continues to deepen; — the housing needs of Travellers, people with disabilities, older people and other marginalised communities continue to be ignored; and — tens of thousands of homeowners and tenants continue to live in unsafe homes impacted by defective concrete block and Celtic Tiger era building defects; further notes that: — housing is a human right; — the cost-of-living crisis is putting ever greater pressure on workers and families while access to key public services including healthcare, childcare, disability and special needs services places even greater financial burdens on communities; — after 4 months in office it is clear that this do-nothing Government has abandoned communities; — the Governments failure to invest in critical infrastructure such as water, electricity and under resourcing of the planning system is delaying the delivery of much needed homes; — the chronic underfunding of our local authority housing and planning departments which must be reversed for councils to play their key role in meeting public housing needs; and — instead of adopting a radical change of housing policy as recommended by the Housing Commission, they are threatening to remove protection for renters, proposing even more tax breaks to vulture funds, and further delaying the delivery of much needed social and affordable homes; and calls on Government to agree that: — emergency action must be taken to address the deepening housing and homeless crisis including; — a dramatic increase of investment in and delivery of public housing to meet social and affordable housing need; — stronger taxes on vacancy and dereliction and greater use of Compulsory Purchase Orders to bring empty homes back into use; — real action to protect private renters through freezing and cutting rents and no changes to Rent Pressure Zones that would increase rents; — an emergency response to rising homelessness, including reintroducing the ban on no fault evictions; and — fully restore and increase funding for vital homeless prevention schemes including Tenant In Situ and Housing First.”
“It failed during its last iteration and in the iteration before that and I have heard nothing today but more gaslighting from the Government and Government backbenchers who clearly do not understand the extent to which the Government is immiserating an entire generation of people who cannot afford to put an affordable roof over their heads. The Government can spin all it likes but the facts speak for themselves. The Government is failing and until it listens to us, the commission and to others, it will continue to fail and the people the Government represents and we represent will continue to suffer the inability to put an affordable, secure and adequate roof over their own heads.”
“At the same time, we are not seeing an adequate delivery of social, affordable rental, affordable purchase or indeed private owner-occupier homes for people to buy. That is why the Raise the Roof campaign has called for a demonstration in Dublin for next Tuesday at 6 p.m. That is why the progressive Opposition has combined to table an alternative emergency Private Members' motion. That is why the Raise the Roof campaign has called for a demonstration in Cork city, for all of Munster, at 2 p.m. at the National Monument on Saturday, 21 June because the Government is failing.”
“Increasingly, we have almost everybody bar the Taoiseach telling us that given the limited grid capacity we have, we cannot continue to allow data centres to connect to that grid - they already take 20% of our energy - at the expense of housing. Everybody is telling us that and I am sure the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, when he is asked privately, probably agrees. The idea the Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, is saying there is adequate grid capacity for homes, public transport and data centres simply is not true. So, where are we at? We have had a decade of bad Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael housing policy: a decade of rising rents, rising house prices and rising homelessness with more than 4,500 children in emergency accommodation tonight. That is a stain on this Government and on the parties in it.”
“That is why we have this problem and maybe some of those from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who have been here longer, should let their colleagues know that you guys have been in government for a decade, you guys have been underinvesting and you guys have been failing to recruit staff - planners and housing staff for local authorities, the board, etc. That is why they are having the problems in their constituencies, not due to the view of the Opposition. With regard to Uisce Éireann and ESB in particular, a year and a half ago Uisce Éireann stated it needed an extra €2 billion to upgrade water and wastewater treatment so that we could move from 30,000 to 40,000 to 50,000 to 60,000 homes. It is still waiting for an answer from the Government. When will that answer come?”
“Then there are the cuts to the social housing acquisition programmes. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the decisions made by the Minister at the end of March and early April are devastating the ability of local authorities to prevent families from becoming homeless through the tenant in situ scheme, and get single people, in particular, out of emergency accommodation through housing first. Why, when we have rising levels of homelessness, the Minister would cut funding for homeless services is beyond me. Then we have the other delays. It is all very well folks from Government coming into this House and saying that we need planning reform, more water utility connections and more ESB connections but the Government is not investing the money in the staff and in the infrastructure.”
“Michael O'Flynn, who is a very well-respected Cork builder, has presented a very stinging criticism of the Government's housing activation office. He said it is not what the Housing Commission recommended, not underpinned by legislation and emergency powers and will not do the things he, the Housing Commission and others suggested it would. Sinn Féin fully supported the Housing Commission's recommendation of a housing delivery oversight executive. For the life of me I cannot understand, one, why the Government did not do that and, two, why it is trying to misrepresent a bad policy proposition as something other than what it is not. Do not listen to me, listen to the member of the commission who partly wrote that section. He is saying the Government got it wrong and I agree with him.”
“We also had the decision of the Minister, Deputy Browne, last week - a shocking decision for many - to collapse bundle 3 of the public-private partnerships, PPPs, for 500 new-build social homes across five counties. I have never supported the PPP process; I always knew it was more expensive. However, by collapsing this process two years in, the Minister has created great uncertainty both for those 500 homes and the two other schemes following that. The Minister needs to come to the House as a matter of urgency and tell us how he will ensure the local authorities and AHBs involved will get the money to deliver those homes because we cannot have any further delay. In regard to the Housing Commission, Mr.”
“I am speaking to local authority director of housing managers and AHBs and they are telling us that across all of the delivery programmes for social and affordable housing - SHIP, CAF, CAS, CREL and the affordable housing fund - there is a growing backlog, the delays have gone from weeks to months and that is slowing down the pipeline of new homes. The Minister is denying it. The officials are denying it. They are refusing to provide Oireachtas Members information in responses to parliamentary questions. We had to secure the intervention of the Ceann Comhairle. If the Government was not able to meet its targets last year, the year before or the year before that, it will definitely not be able to meet them now which means fewer social homes and fewer affordable homes with all of the consequences of that.”
“The irony is that I do not believe the Government will get the new rental stock it thinks it will get by linking new rents and new rental properties to the consumer price index and even if it does, it will be so expensive and in such limited parts of the country that it will simply make matters worse. What we have is a Government gaslighting renters when itsays it is protecting them when the exact opposite is the case. The Government will make renters' lives more difficult in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis and we will keep highlighting that to the Government as we proceed. I will also talk about the enormous delays in the Department of housing.”
“We also have this very confusing issue of what happens at the end of a new tenancy. A new tenancy is not just when you move into a property; it is also when your existing six year tenancy expires and you sign a new one because the press release from the Minister stated that at the end of that six years rents can be increased to a market rent. We need urgent clarification on this because it seemed that both the Minister for housing and the Taoiseach were incredibly confused by that earlier. Whatever way we look at it, rents will begin to increase at a faster rate for greater numbers of tenants almost immediately after these rules come in.”
“There is also no great value in extending RPZs to everybody else in the State if you are hollowing out those RPZs to such an extent that they do not do what they originally intended to do. Let us look at the facts. One of the big changes the Government has made is the application of allowing landlords with existing rental properties to reset the rent to market rent when a tenant moves out voluntarily or through a fault eviction, and a new tenant moves in. Do we know how many of those tenancies are created every year? Last year there were approximately 50,000. That means the first consequence of the decision by the Government is that tens of thousands of tenancies that would not otherwise have had their rents reset at market rents will have them reset. That is a fact. Go and check the data from the Residential Tenancies Board.”
“I will use the time I have to run through a number of issues of enormous concern, the first of which is the announcement by the Minister for housing today. It is essentially the death knell for rent pressure zones. I welcome the fact that the RPZs are to be extended to the 20% of renters who previously did not have them but the big issue is when. Landlords have now been told that they are coming and the more the delay, the greater risks there are to renters, including those in the constituency of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, that they will get even higher rent increases now as landlords anticipate the application of the RPZs. The urgency around that legislation is crucial and I would like to see it introduced immediately.”
“The State is buying a bunch of those but the number of new homes being built by local authorities and approved housing bodies is far too low. Yes, it is true that €7 billion has been spent by the State on various housing matters but a lot of that is incredibly wasteful expenditure, including €1 billion on HAP, RAS and rent supplement - money straight into the pockets of landlords - and another €1 billion or so in subsidies that are not actually delivering any new homes. The actual amount of money spent on the delivery of new social, affordable rental and affordable purchase homes is only about €4 billion, which is why the Government is missing its targets every single year. It will miss them again this year and next year.”
“I know Members are busy but if the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, does not want to be accused of being a hypocrite, he should be very careful of the criticism he levels at others when he is guilty of the very same thing. I chuckle every time hear somebody in Fianna Fáil say it is the party of home ownership. Home ownership has collapsed under Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael over the last decade and a half. In fact, it has never been so difficult for young people in their 20s, 30s and early 40s to buy homes. The rates of home ownership are getting lower by the year because of the Government's policies. With regard to the claim that the majority of homebuilding is being done by the State, as the Deputy for Wicklow-Wexford just said, that is not factually true. In fact, between 80% and 90% of all new homes are built by private developers.”
“I apologise for being slightly late for the debate. A very important session of the housing committee is taking place. The Housing Commission, after almost a year of delay and being ignored by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, is finally giving a very interesting session. I will refer to some of that in my testimony here. With respect to the remarks of the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, it is slightly ironic that he criticised Opposition parties for not being here, told us he was very interested to hear what we had to say and then, the moment he finished his speech, he stood up and walked out, as other colleagues have done.”
“I know the Minister will not answer the question and will probably just read out the script for the third time, but can he at least talk to the officials in his Department, who head up the homeless services, and to the local authorities to ensure that whatever target he sets for housing first this year is met through a mixture of new builds and acquisitions?”
“The housing first programme is vital in getting single people, in particular, who are long-term homeless out of emergency accommodation. It has worked best in previous years when it was a mix of new build and acquisitions led by approved housing bodies using the capital advance leasing facility, CALF, and capital assistance scheme, CAS, funding mechanisms. There is real concern among local authorities, particularly in Dublin and Cork, that the changes the Minister made will make it difficult to reach the targets for this year, particularly if they have increased.”
“Much of the discussion around social housing acquisitions has been on the tenant in situ scheme but there is also a very real concern the housing first programme will be affected. The programme for Government commits to increasing the targets for housing first. Will the Minister tell us what those targets are? Does he have any concern the restrictions on funding for acquisitions will make it difficult to meet those targets?”
“Anything that will speed this process up we will support but the Minister cannot blame the local authorities as there is a lot that is directly related to the him, his funding allocations and his departmental rules and that needs to change as well.”
“I thought the Taoiseach's comments on this issue on Tuesday were deeply disappointing. Talking about a "dependency culture" and local authorities asking for "handouts" misunderstands the problem. There are three issues I urge the Minister to take into account when looking at the delays in casual re-lets. The first is the amount of funding per unit is not sufficient in many cases, especially when the stock has been lived in for a lengthy period. The second is the time it is taking local authorities to receive approval from the Department is too long. I talk to local authority officials and it can be six months before they get approval. The third issue is procurement rules are too rigid.”
“When Cork City Council says it has no money now for acquisitions applied for in 2025, will the Minister meet with the council, the councillors and the executive and discuss expanding the budget? When Dublin City Council finally works through its overhang from last year and confirms, just like Cork city has done, that there will be no money for new housing first acquisitions or tenant in situ acquisitions this year, will the Minister meet the councillors and the management and reopen the funding? If he does not, more people will become homeless. Misrepresenting Sinn Féin's policy is not a smart move when families' well-being is at risk because the Minister cut funding and they will become homeless as a consequence.”
“It is deeply disappointing that not only did the Minister fail to address the question but he also misrepresented Sinn Féin's policy. Let me set the record straight. In our alternative housing plan, we have made provision for 6,500 acquisitions over five years, 2,000 this year, reducing by 200 each year until 2029. That is because we make the assumption that demand for the scheme over five years will reduce. The Minister is providing no extra funding for acquisitions in the largest local authorities in this year. What he has allocated will deal just with last year's applications, and some of those applications will not now be processed because the Minister has changed the rules for tenant in situ and people who otherwise would have been prevented from becoming homeless will lose access to the scheme. My question is very simple.”
“They are telling the Minister and his fellow party members and our party members that they will not have funding for new acquisitions for 2025. He needs to listen to them, engage and reopen the funding. The consequence will be that in Cork city, Dublin city and elsewhere, more people will become homeless and more people will spend more time in emergency accommodation. That is what front-line local authority homeless service managers are telling us and the Government's backbenchers, councillors and Senators. The Minister needs to listen to them and reopen these funding arrangements to ensure that homelessness does not continue to increase.”
“With the greatest of respect to the Minister, what utter rubbish. When he notified local authorities of their allocations at the end of March, there was a sharp intake of breath, particularly in the large urban local authorities that have significant levels of homelessness. Not only was the capital allocation a substantial cut on what had been spent on acquisitions last year, but when the local authorities sift through the paused and delayed applications from 2024, closed or not closed, they are telling their elected members they have no money left. In Cork city, for example, communication to TDs and councillors has said that when they deal with the overhang for 2024, there is not a cent left for new acquisitions. Dublin city is the same. Fingal is in the same situation, as well as a number of other local authorities.”
“I will let Thomas catch his breath. He has run across the city, fair play to him. I am surprised the Corkman did not get lost. In light of the very real concern among local authorities and councillors, TDs and Senators, from both Government and Opposition benches, about the impact of the Government's cuts to social housing acquisition funding, including tenant in situ and housing first, will the Minister give a commitment to revisit that decision and reverse the cut to ensure that local authorities have the funds to purchase homes to prevent people from becoming homeless and to allow people to get out of emergency accommodation more speedily?”
“I urge the Minister to consider this again because what he is saying is simply not reflective of what I am hearing from local authorities, AHBs and builders.”
“The Minister brought a memorandum to the Cabinet that promised to unblock the 3,000 units, but I am hearing that about half of the approvals to approved housing bodies related to the AHB portion of the 3,000 units have yet to be subject to due diligence in the Department and notification to the AHBs. I am hearing of AHBs with CALF, CREL and CAS applications that have been in the system for many months, which is undermining their ability to start going through the pipeline and their ability in respect of builders and developers of their turnkeys. The position is similar with local authorities. In other counties, there are schemes or homes that are finished but empty because CALF, CREL or SHIP funding has not been approved. The homes cannot be acquired and people cannot move in.”
“I am beginning to worry that the Minister does not understand what is actually happening in his Department. I urge him to talk to local authority directors of housing and the Irish Council for Social Housing. I will forward him the details on the individual schemes by way of email after this meeting. Typically, a decision on an application from an AHB – for example, for the capital advance leasing facility – will be made in six to eight weeks. There was a large number of applications at the start of this year that were three or four months awaiting a decision.”
“One builder in Dublin, who was halfway through building 50-plus apartments, had to close the site down because of an outstanding AHB CALF approval, the application having been last year. Can the Minister be honest with us and tell us how many of the 3,000 units have been subject to formal notification of approval? Are there more beyond those? We were hearing earlier this year that there could be as many as 5,000 units delayed. One assumes this is because of difficulties and disagreements between officials in the Minister’s Department and those in the Department of Finance and the Department of public expenditure and reform.”
“The suggestion that what has been happening with the approvals for social and affordable housing at the end of last year and early this year is perfectly normal is simply not true. Either the Minister knows that and is refusing to address the question or he simply does not know what is going on in his Department. There is considerable frustration among local authorities, approved housing bodies and builders over the significant delay. Three thousand units were approved by the Cabinet in February but many of the related projects have not actually secured formal approval and notification has not been issued to the local authorities and approved housing bodies. I am talking to AHBs, large and small, and to builders.”
“Will the Minister update the House on the ongoing delay in approvals of social and affordable housing projects for local authorities and approved housing bodies? In particular, how many of the 3,000 units that got Cabinet funding approval on 18 February still have not been formally approved and notified to the local authorities and approved housing bodies? How many projects beyond the 3,000 are also delayed and awaiting approval in his Department?”
“On that basis, I commend the motion to the House and urge the Minister not to continue repeating the mistakes of the past, but to respond to the situation with the urgency that is required. Otherwise, he will not even be able to meet the Government's own modest housing targets.”
“We also need increased investment in our grid capacity to ensure connections are available and, of course, we need the full implementation of the Housing Commission's recommendation. The housing activation office does not do that. It is time for the Government to stop blaming everyone else. It is the Government's responsibility and its failure to invest in critical infrastructure is causing the problem. It is the Government's failure to invest in staffing in our planning system as well as its controversial proposed changes to the planning system that are causing so many delays. Ultimately, it is the Government's failure to invest in the delivery of genuinely affordable homes that is causing so many difficulties for working people.”
“An Bord Pleanála needs another 30 staff above those sanctioned by the Minister's predecessor and at least another three judges are needed on the environment and planning court of the High Court to deal with judicial reviews. We also need statutory timelines at all stages of the planning process. Despite the fact we proposed these by way of amendments during the debates on the Planning and Development Act, they were rejected by the Government. We also need significant increased investment in water and wastewater infrastructure. As the Minister will be aware, Uisce Éireann has requested an additional €2 billion. We have yet to hear the Government's response to that.”
“The fact that the Minister has refused to fully implement the Housing Commission's recommendation on a housing delivery oversight executive with emergency powers underpinned by legislation shows that he does not understand the extent of the problem, although it was interesting that Simon Harris suggested he might be open to the idea of legislation. I suspect he did not talk to the Minister about that before he spoke publicly. We have set out over and over again in our alternative housing plan and our manifesto what needs to be done. The local authorities have told the Government that they need an additional 500 planning staff to deal with their existing workload, and that is before the enactment of the controversial Planning and Development Act 2024.”
“Despite the fact the Government has been repeatedly called upon to provide this additional funding and staffing, it has failed to so. Therefore, we have a situation where the Government has finally decided to increase its housing targets, which are still too low, in the national planning framework, but failure to invest in water, electricity and planning has meant it will not be able to meet its own targets unless something urgent is done. That is why we tabled this motion on these crucial issues.”
“Today in the Irish Examiner , Cork County Council speaks about how the lack of investment in critical infrastructure, particularly water, means no new homes can be built. In fact, it was the Fianna Fáil mayor and Fine Gael councillors who were most critical of how their Government's failure to invest in infrastructure was causing these problems. Meanwhile, the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, blames everyone else for the problems in our planning system. It is the fault of residents associations or environmental groups. Deputy Chambers, the Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform was at it only a week ago. Everyone knows that the key problem in our planning system is a lack of staffing in our councils, An Bord Pleanála and the environmental and planning court that deals with judicial reviews.”
“The following day, The Irish Times revealed information from a freedom of information request that, last year, the Government deliberately misled the House by claiming it was allocating an additional €1 billion of new money for Uisce Éireann to increase the capacity of water and wastewater treatment plants in urban and rural Ireland when it was not additional money. It was simply for its current capital programme. Yesterday, The Irish Times highlighted the important proposed masterplan of Dublin City Council in Ballyboggan of potentially 6,000 new homes and possibly even more. Again, Uisce Éireann says that because of delays in the planning system - delays caused by the failure of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to resource that system - those are also now potentially at risk.”
“Almost every second day, newspapers are covering the failure of the Government and its predecessors to invest in critical infrastructure and the consequential increasing risk to the delivery of housing. Only two weeks ago, the Saturday edition of the Irish Daily Mail revealed a story from Sinn Féin MEP, Lynn Boylan, highlighting the concerns of the Commission for Regulation of Utilities about the lack of grid capacity and the use of grid capacity by data centres putting the Government's housing targets at risk. Only a day or two later, The Irish Times on its front page talked about how ESB Networks's grid capacities were putting housing developments at risk across the State. It talked about Celbridge, Portlaoise, Navan, Cork and elsewhere.”
“I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes that: — decades of underfunding by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments, in our water and electricity infrastructure, have created significant constraints to the increased delivery of public and private housing; — the Commission for Regulation of Utilities has warned that data centres pose a risk to increased housing delivery, due to constraints in the electricity grid; — Uisce Éireann have said that meeting the Government's revised housing targets would require a significant increase in capital funding, above their current programme to increase water and wastewater capacity in urban and rural areas; — the Irish Home Builders Association have repeatedly warned that the electricity grid, drinking water, wastewater capacity and connections are a constraint on housing delivery; and — the Government's proposed Housing Activation Office does not have the emergency powers underpinned by legislation as called for by the Housing Commission; and agrees that the Government must: — as a matter of urgency, set out its plans for the funding of, and delivery of, increased capacity of critical infrastructure required for the delivery of housing, including the electricity grid, drinking water and wastewater; — fully implement the Housing Commission's proposal for a housing delivery oversight executive, with emergency powers underpinned by legislation; and — properly resource our planning system, to ensure timely decisions are made on applications for the delivery of critical infrastructure and new housing.”
“I have spoken with builders in County Donegal and elsewhere who have completed projects, with homes built and empty that cannot be occupied because the funding has yet to be approved. Will the Tánaiste tell us when all of the approvals for the 3,000 units that received financial sanction at Cabinet in February will be finalised and communicated to the AHBs and councils? Will he also ask the Minister to communicate to me directly how many other schemes and units are awaiting approval beyond that 3,000?”
“On 18 February last, the Cabinet approved funding for 3,000 social and affordable homes. Decisions on these applications from councils and approved housing bodies had been greatly delayed. At the time, we were told by the Department that within a matter of weeks, following due diligence, formal notification of the approvals would be passed on to the councils and AHBs. Some 11 weeks on, many of these schemes have still not been formally approved. I spoke with one builder-developer in Dublin. He has a turnkey project for one of the large AHBs of more than 50 units. He has had to close down the site because they are still awaiting CALF approval for the AHB. That application was submitted last July.”