I move amendment No. 21: In page 6, between lines 4 and 5, to insert the following: “Amendment of section 177K of Act of 2000 6. Section 177K of the Act of 2000 is amended by— (a) the substitution of the following subsection: “(1) Where an application is made to the Board for substitute consent in accordance with this Act and regulations under this Act— (a) the Board shall ensure that it has, or has access to, sufficient expertise to enable it to examine the remedial environmental impact assessment report and ensur…

Amendment No. 1 to Government amendment No. 21, as tabled by Deputy Ó Broin, seeks to insert provisions into section 177K(1D) which would require the board, in the case of applications pending before the board upon such commencement, to make the following available: all information considered by the board in making a decision to grant or refuse leave to apply for substitute consent under section 177D; all information considered by a planning authority under section 177B or section 261A(3) at the notice stage giving…

I thank Deputy Ó Broin for bringing this Bill forward and providing us with another opportunity to discuss homelessness and, importantly, the aspect of prevention. It is correct that prevention is always better than cure. Tackling homelessness is a moral imperative for this Government and for our State. On the point raised by Deputy Andrews regarding local connections, I clarified that aspect this week in writing to every local authority. That correspondence has been issued. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan and others have …

The Deputy is not doing too well.

I will reply to the Deputy on that.

It is on Monday. It was on yesterday.

The Deputy will find all the minutes are available on the website, as Deputy Ó Broin has done.

They are on at least every couple of weeks, and sometimes weekly.

They started off weekly. All the other agencies have work to do and it does not suit to meet on every Monday either. They are all on board with it.

I will take a note of what the Deputy says and come back on it.

I thank Senators for facilitating the introduction of the Planning and Development Bill 2020 and the urgent passage of this important legislation through the Houses of the Oireachtas. For this reason, I will be requesting, in due course, that this House considers a motion to enable the President to sign the Bill earlier than would be routine. I am bringing forward the Planning and Development Bill 2020 as a matter of urgency in light of the present Covid-19 pandemic and to ensure that the necessary protections are …

On a point of order, I do not want to be argumentative in any way but I have outlined what happened clearly, in good faith and in a truthful manner. The Senator is trying to twist that. That did not happen so let us be honest about what happened.

I was trying to be helpful.

It has been a tough week for them.

I know.

Was he okay?

I thank Members for their contributions and for the points they have raised, all of which I have taken note of and some of which I will do my best to respond to today. We can come back to some of the others on Monday, but all of the points have been taken on board. At the outset, I will mention an issue which was raised by a Senator today. I refer to a very tragic death in the vicinity of this House. I am loath to comment on specific cases, as the Senator may understand, because each case is a tragedy for the famil…

I thank the Deputy for his question. Increasing the supply of housing, particularly social and affordable housing, is a priority for me and for the Government. The programme for Government contains a commitment in respect of increasing the social housing stock by more than 50,000 units, with an emphasis on new builds. I will elaborate on that presently. In budget 2021, we backed this objective with funding of €3.3 billion for the delivery of housing. This is the largest budget allocation for housing in the history …

The Deputy makes a fair point. We are all aware of the reason delivery stood at only 9% at the end of quarter 2. I was criticised by the Deputy in that regard but that is fair enough. A housing delivery task force comprised of all the stakeholders - the housing delivery co-ordination office, local authorities and approved housing bodies - meets regularly and I will have the report in the next couple of weeks. I am focusing on quarter 4 completions. Given the target of delivering more than 11,000 completions, it is …

The Deputy criticised me.