Michael Fitzmaurice slams housing bureaucracy, demands practical fixes
Michael Fitzmaurice criticised planning and housing systems, arguing that council bureaucracy, Irish Water delays and procurement rules are blocking social and affordable housing delivery. He urged streamlined decision-making, conditional funding for Irish Water, easier access for smaller builders and a different approach to rural housing.
He welcomed small cabin-style units as a helpful addition to supply, saying they are getting more houses done and suggesting the cabin at the back of the house should be about 200 square foot bigger to match modular options.
He argued councils are designing different house types across dozens of areas instead of adopting strategic standard 2, 3 and 4-bedroom models, producing needless paperwork and delays. He criticised planning bureaucracy with examples such as owners being unable to get simple exemptions after minor works to chimneys, and said uneven council resourcing is holding projects back.
He said current tendering rules exclude smaller builders who have not carried out recent government contracts, even if they have substantial private-sector experience, and called for making small sites of five or ten houses available to those builders to increase delivery.
He highlighted limits in funding for council homes — a once-off £11,000 grant is insufficient for many repairs and deeper retrofits, and departmental retrofit grants of £25,000-£30,000 can still fall far short of actual costs. He warned councils will take the best-condition houses when budgets are tight and leave the rest unaddressed.
He urged that Irish Water be funded but with conditions on efficiency, arguing the utility has become top-heavy and decision times have stretched to 22 weeks. He said earlier ministerial packages for small-town sewerage were not spent because councils kept redesigning and passing work back to Irish Water, and that water and sewer decisions should be made in two to four weeks.
He called for a different approach to rural housing so families with farm backgrounds can build on family land and argued the housing situation is urgent. He also warned that house prices in Dublin have become effectively unaffordable for many buyers.
Small modular homes and interim accommodation
He welcomed small cabin-style units as a helpful addition to supply, saying they are getting more houses done and suggesting the cabin at the back of the house should be about 200 square foot bigger to match modular options.
Planning, design and council processes
He argued councils are designing different house types across dozens of areas instead of adopting strategic standard 2, 3 and 4-bedroom models, producing needless paperwork and delays. He criticised planning bureaucracy with examples such as owners being unable to get simple exemptions after minor works to chimneys, and said uneven council resourcing is holding projects back.
Procurement barriers for smaller builders
He said current tendering rules exclude smaller builders who have not carried out recent government contracts, even if they have substantial private-sector experience, and called for making small sites of five or ten houses available to those builders to increase delivery.
Council housing maintenance and retrofit funding
He highlighted limits in funding for council homes — a once-off £11,000 grant is insufficient for many repairs and deeper retrofits, and departmental retrofit grants of £25,000-£30,000 can still fall far short of actual costs. He warned councils will take the best-condition houses when budgets are tight and leave the rest unaddressed.
Irish Water, sewerage and delivery times
He urged that Irish Water be funded but with conditions on efficiency, arguing the utility has become top-heavy and decision times have stretched to 22 weeks. He said earlier ministerial packages for small-town sewerage were not spent because councils kept redesigning and passing work back to Irish Water, and that water and sewer decisions should be made in two to four weeks.
Rural housing and market pressures
He called for a different approach to rural housing so families with farm backgrounds can build on family land and argued the housing situation is urgent. He also warned that house prices in Dublin have become effectively unaffordable for many buyers.
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Transcript
The first thing is that everyone is in agreement with the Cree Coney, it is a good thing. It is getting more houses done. I think the cabin at the back of the house is a good thing, I would like if it was 200 square foot bigger, because it might be the same as the modular home, but let's say it is good, are all the helps in the housing sector. The facts are, let's go to social and affordable housing, why are we architects designing up houses in 26 or 30 different councils when we should have a strategic type of a house done 2, 3 and 4 bedroom for all different counties the way that it is standard, that there is no one sending paper over and back, over and back, and scratching their head wondering what we will do next with it. We should be able to also let smaller builders in, because at the moment if you have not done a government job in the last few years, you cannot tinder. Even though you might have built a hundred houses out in the private sector, that is absolutely crazy. The same with Irish Water, you could have laid 5,000 kilometres of pipe for the councils down through the years on group water schemes and damage, but you cannot lay a bit of a pipe for them or tinder, because you did not do jobs for them before. It is absolutely horrendous how we are blocking it. On top of that, let's go to sewerage. In fairness to Minister O'Brien, Daryl O'Brien, when he was Minister of Housing, he sent out a package each year, it wasn't a big amount, it wasn't going to do the whole country, but for towns that hadn't Irish water, that had no sewerage scheme, to basically bring a sewerage scheme into it. To this day, not one penny of that has been spent. Why? Because the councils are designing over to Irish Water and back again and over again. And if that bureaucracy isn't cut out, you can give all the money you want in the world to housing, but it won't be done, because we have people within the desks that aren't driving the agenda on and using a bit of cop on and common sense as how to do it. Thirdly, in council houses or in social housing, if someone dies and leaves a house, once during that house, will they get £11,000 from your department to do it up. If someone came to my house this minute, the council wouldn't take it, because there would be a handle to a door or something not right. These houses have to be perfect, and once you get £11,000, and if you have to go to the full extremes of putting in the electric heaters and all of that, full retrofit, your department gives them £25,000 to £30,000 and it could cost them 80. If the council hasn't got the money, they'll pick the best houses and after that they're going to leave the rest. You know, people give out about the councils, having four or five thousand houses not done. That's why. It's very simple. So someone within the department needs to decide what they're doing that way. In the line of driving forward, we need Irish Water, as has been said by several, to be properly funded. But properly funded with conditions of efficiency. Because at the moment they're gone top heavy, they're like the HSE now, Irish Water. One time ago, I remember when Gerry Grant was there, it was a fairly efficient outfit. Since then, whatever has gone wrong, it takes 22 weeks to get a decision even that you'll get water or get sewerage. That's absolutely crazy. You should have a decision within two to four weeks whether there's water. We know that there's water going along the side of the road and the pressure of it, or we don't. On top of that, in the line of Irish Water, they have to be funded. If you don't have roads, sewer and water, you're not going to build any houses and let no-one go codding themselves about it. We do need to focus on Labour because, you know, you can magically think – we all know what went on last year. If I was a builder and I'd build on three or four hundred houses, I was going to put in a commencement notice because I'd get the money back. It just hit and it showed in two spikes in the year, if you look at the chart, and then people decided, oh, well, we're building this amount of houses. Anyone that knows anything about building new to what isn't going to happen, and that's them are the two spikes that happened last year. We need to move on from that. It's all right blaming everyone, but if we don't go and decide how we're going to drive it out. Plannum. Another thing. Every council in this country is different. When you have a situation that someone is trying to do up an old house, and a chimney got cracked in it a few years ago, and they decided rather than letting water down, that they'd put slates over the chimney. Take the chimney down and put slates over it. They couldn't get an exemption because, you know what, they interfered with the house. And if that's the type of bureaucracy that's going on in planning departments, we are going nowhere. On top of that, as has been said earlier, the councils need to be resourced. It's better for basically doing all that type of work. And why don't we go into a system of giving smaller builders five or ten houses, get a site done out. Affordable housing, as has been said earlier by Deputy Kinney, it doesn't exist in a lot of counties, to be quite frank about it. And to be honest, some of the councils don't even know how to go around it. That's been said about it. And we need to promote trying to get as many houses done efficiently as possible. Because God help anyone that's trying to buy a house in Dublin at the figures I'm seeing at the moment. It's like lotto figures. You don't want to win the lotto to afford a house in Dublin. And these are people that deserve to have a home. In the line of going forward, we need to make sure, in rural housing, that rural housing needs to have a totally different look at it at the moment. If your family comes from the farm or whatever, they should be able to build on that farm. That house is built. This is about an emergency now. It's not deciding whether, like thankfully the electricity came to all parts of Ireland years ago, thankfully the water is around, and thankfully that we have a road. So what's the big idea that we shouldn't build on it? Because people can actually work from home now with the broadband which will be a help. But I would ask your Minister to concentrate on the few things I have mentioned. Small tweaks that within your department is actually frustrating people at building, is blocking people from tinder to get more efficiency, and if you do that, I think you will free up. It's not the big monstrous things that are going to solve everything. It might be the small tweaks that will help. And I wish you the best look.