Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for his comments. That clarifies why we are here and why this has to be done. It is frustrating that money is not being spent. We can all see where the failings are happening across the country and where accommodation is of a poor standard or where there is no Traveller-specific accommodation. There have been plenty of ideas, plans and TAPs but they have not been followed through upon. That is what we are trying to change. We have raised this issue with all the local authorities at the various housing summits and I have even done so in my weekly meetings with them. I try to encourage them to do what they are meant to do, to live up to their responsibilities and to ensure that the resources are spent. We are still facing a situation this year where we will see resources go unspent.

The social housing task force has been set up in Galway as well. Its job is to try to tackle some of the specific issues in Galway but there are other counties that also have urgent priorities. Some local authorities have worked OK but the majority have not done so and they have not delivered for a combination of reasons. When I go from site to site and meet the various stakeholders, be they the local authorities, the Traveller representative families or groups, I learn that it has not happened for a combination of reasons. In any event, we need to move on from that, ensure that it happens in the future and deal with matters as best as we possibly can. There are some cases where the housing delivery office will have a role in the short-term to try to drive the spend in these areas and to make sure the money that has been allocated will be spent in the short-term while we look at setting up some of the new areas. We will ask the housing delivery office to do that as well.

The question of how to deal with some of the blockages is the key. The Senator asked me if emergency powers have been used. From what we can see, they have only been used three times in the past ten years. The Senator mentioned Clare but the examples I have are that CEOs have used emergency powers, twice in the case of Limerick City and County Council and once in the case of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.

The Part 8 process has been used just 24 times across 11 local authorities. That speaks for itself. It has been recommended that we should encourage CEOs to make greater use of their emergency powers. It has been suggested that we should pressurise CEOs to do so. It is natural that CEOs do not want to have to do this. They would rather not do it because it goes against their own members. There is no reason we cannot encourage it, but we cannot make anyone do it. However, the use of this facility is nearly a failing in itself. We need to find a better way to proceed. That is what we are trying to do here. I accept the Senator's point that this is one of the recommendations. Ideally, we should find a way of dealing with this matter. The committee has discussed it. I will be happy to engage with the committee on the matter.

There are a couple of recommendations that we are discussing as we make plans. We are trying to decide how best to do this. Which way should we go? We have asked for legal advice to help us to understand which of the recommendations we can use. There have been some conversations about the desire within local authorities for them to keep their powers. Local democracy means that all decisions should be made as locally as possible. It has been recommended that we should make changes to cover cases in which that is not happening. That is what we are considering. We want to see which of these recommendations represents the best way to proceed. Is there some sort of compromise? Perhaps I should not use the word "compromise". Should we consider some sort of use-it-or-lose-it approach? If so, how best should that be done? We have to make these decisions in the next couple of weeks. We have to decide on the implementation of a new route.