Vol. 1073 No. 4
1. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the actions he intends to take in the coming months to halt the relentless rise in adult and child homelessness and to reduce the number of people presenting as homeless and accelerate the number of exits of persons currently in emergency accommodation. [54228/25]
As the Minister knows, homelessness is at the highest level since modern records began. Over 16,000 people, including 5,000 children are officially categorised as homeless and in emergency accommodation funded by the Department. Astonishingly, neither the Minister for Finance nor the Minister for public expenditure and reform even referenced homelessness yesterday. The budget book simply references an increase for emergency accommodation, hardly a sign of success. Will the Minister outline the actions he intends to take in the coming weeks and months to start to get a grip on this crisis so that we see the numbers of adults and in particular children in emergency accommodation fall?
I thank the Deputy. Addressing homelessness and in particular homeless families and children is a priority for me, the Department and the Government. Ireland signed the Lisbon declaration in June 2021 which committed all signatories to work towards ending homelessness by 2030. I will continue to work with the National Homeless Action Committee to ensure an all-of-government approach to drive the ambition of the Lisbon declaration. Critical to supporting households to exit homelessness is our continued investment in the social housing programme. Budget 2026 has continued the record level of investment in social housing with €2.9 billion in capital allocated to support the delivery of social homes by local authorities. This continued investment in the social housing programme will increase the supply of stock available to allocate to households on social housing waiting lists, including households in emergency accommodation. It is important that local authorities ensure sufficient allocations are made to families in emergency accommodation. A key focus for me is to reduce the time families spend in emergency accommodation as well as prevention. In September I wrote to 21 local authorities with families in emergency accommodation for more than 12 months and asked them to use all housing schemes to exit these families from emergency accommodation. I ring-fenced an additional €50 million which I secured as part of the national development plan process to exit households who are the longest in homeless accommodation with a focus in the first instance on larger families with children and housing first clients. This funding is in addition to the €325 million already committed to the social housing second-hand acquisitions programme in 2025, bringing the second-hand acquisition programme in total to €375 million so far this year. Ensuring that families and children experiencing homelessness are provided with accommodation and supports is critical. Budget 2026 provides an allocation of €513.5 million to provide homeless emergency accommodation and supports. Capital funding of €50 million has been allocated to support the provision and maintenance of quality emergency and transitional accommodation. The new housing plan will be published shortly. It will include robust and targeted actions that will increase the provision of housing.
Yesterday, in response to the budget, Focus Ireland said: "Budget 2026 has failed to deliver for the record number of over 16,350 people now homeless as the Government did not take any decisive action on housing to help the most vulnerable in society." The Simon Communities of Ireland in a similar vein said: "It is deeply disappointing that yet again there was no mention of homeless prevention and homelessness remains invisible within the budget and also in the ever-present conversation around housing". We know last year fewer social homes were delivered than the year before. We know the budget allocation for local authorities for social housing for this year is over €200 million less than what was spent last year. We are not going to see an increase in supply to get people out of emergency accommodation. The budget increase for this year is not really an increase at all but simply reflects the high level of expenditure on emergency accommodation. That means as a consequence of the decisions the Government took in the budget announced yesterday, homelessness is going to increase and notices of termination continue to be issued at an accelerating rate. I want to know not what the Minister has done to date because that is failing but what is he going to do differently? What new initiative to prevent people from becoming homeless or get people out of emergency accommodation more quickly was announced in the budget yesterday?
With our new housing plan, we are developing the homelessness prevention framework. Significant work has been ongoing in relation to that, working with all the NGOs. I acknowledge the good work by Focus Ireland and the Simon Communities of Ireland. When I became Minister for housing, the first thing I did was visit all of the homeless organisations at their sites to get the necessary information. They have been front and centre of everything I have been doing for the past eight months, including meeting on a regular basis through the National Homeless Action Committee, working together to ensure homelessness is reduced.
My focus is absolutely on reducing that homeless number. It will be done through a number of different measures, including delivering on social housing, but also for those who are entering into homelessness, preventions, exits out as quickly as possible and working with people in emergency accommodation. I have outlined some of what we are in the middle of doing. Our homeless prevention framework, worked out with our NGOs, will also be published very soon.
The Simon Communities of Ireland went on to say yesterday, “The measures announced today will do nothing to reduce the numbers of people being forced to experience the trauma of homelessness.” What it is saying and what I want the Minister to respond to is, of the €235 million of additional funding for homeless services on the allocation to date of this year, how much will be spent on new homeless prevention or homeless exits or is that money simply a reflection of what the Government is actually going to spend this year? Is the Minister going to bring a further Supplementary Estimate, for example, on homelessness that will show spend this year closer to the allocation for next? What is new in yesterday’s budget? How much money and on what programmes will the Minister use that money to reduce homelessness in the time ahead? On the basis of what I am seeing and what the homeless sector is saying, there is nothing new or additional to prevent or end homelessness more rapidly in yesterday’s budget.
As the Deputy rightly points out, there is significant additional funding for homelessness in yesterday’s budget. As the Deputy knows, budgets are always broad strokes. You are dealing with multiple Departments and within those Departments there are multiple areas. I will, through the Revised Estimates Volume, work out exactly how we will allocate this funding and how we will use it. In particular, the homeless prevention framework will be absolutely key to preventing people going into homelessness. We cannot address homelessness as a homogenous group. People are becoming homeless for different reasons. The most common and most frequent reason is notices to quit. That is why we are introducing the reforms in the rental sector to give renters security of tenure, which is critical to bringing us in line with the rest of Europe, but there are also other measures to increase delivery on social housing by as much as possible and as quickly as possible. As that will not end homelessness immediately, we will also have funding for those who are in homelessness, along with prevention and exit measures. This is a multifaceted approach to address homelessness.
2. Deputy Conor Sheehan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the way in which he intends to ensure the LDA meets its targets with a sustainable source of funding in view of the recent report by the Department of Finance into sustainable funding options for the LDA; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53944/25]
How does the Minister intend to ensure the LDA meets its housing targets with a sustainable source of funding, especially in light of a recent report from the Department of Finance into sustainable future funding options for the LDA?
The Land Development Agency is a key part of the Government’s housing strategy in delivering affordable homes for rent and sale in communities right across Ireland. The Department of Finance’s report on the sustainable funding options for the Land Development Agency considered the financing needs of the LDA and the implications of this need on the business model and operational activities of the agency. This report and the pressing need for further expansion in housing supply of all tenure types have informed the Government’s decision in June to expand the role and remit of the LDA.
The annual report of the LDA for 2024, for example, which will be laid before the House this week, shows that the Government invested a further €325 million from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund in 2024. The LDA invested €535 million in 2024 which, combined with existing assets, means the LDA holds €600 million in cost-rental assets now and €305 million in assets under construction at the end of 2024.
The Government has committed to empower the LDA to widen its operational model to allow it to increase its level of capital recycling thorough the disposal of more units through affordable purchase schemes and, where appropriate to local housing demand, private sales. The LDA will also seek to further develop its land assembly function to ensure a healthy pipeline of serviced sites with a potential for further capital recovery where appropriate.
This expansion to the role and remit of the LDA will leverage its existing expertise and skills to accelerate the delivery of housing in vibrant, sustainable communities all over Ireland and support the LDA reaching the mature stage of its lifecycle as a major developer and provider of affordable housing. The LDA entered into spending commitments of €824 million in 2024 which will deliver around 1,750 homes and has major projects for direct delivery at various stages of planning and development which will deliver over 10,000 homes by 2029. In addition to changes to the LDA’s operating model, officials from my Department are currently liaising with the Department of Finance on the treatment of the LDA’s cost-rental activity with respect to corporation tax. This has the potential to further support the sustainability of the LDA.
We know the LDA has delivered 2,054 homes between 2018 and 2024. The biggest issue is that, of that figure, only 281 homes were delivered through direct delivery, with the majority delivered through Project Tosaigh. How does the Minister intend to ensure the LDA is adequately capitalised? What is his view of the current financing model of the LDA? I believe the LDA cost rental model is broken. Rents are way beyond the reach of those for whom cost rental was intended and the financing model is completely different from how cost rental operates in other countries. It is very clear the LDA will not meet its targets unless it continues to buy turnkey assets. Will the Minister clarify his view on the current financing model and whether he believes the LDA needs to refocus its mandate?
That is exactly what the Department of Finance did, working with the Department of housing. It looked at how the LDA is financed and how it can be financed into the future and examining the remit of the LDA. We have agreed to expand its role.
The LDA will be absolutely critical. It will very soon be the largest housing delivery body in this country. We are fully committed to expanding its role and using financing to ensure that happens. In its gearing up it was very reliant on what are often referred to as turnkeys but we have to be aware that very much refers to off-plan properties that otherwise would not have been built. It was not a case of going in and buying properties that had been built where keys were ready to be handed over. The LDA is now moving more towards direct delivery and that is really important. We want to get to a situation where all delivery, whether it is affordable housing bodies, the LDA or local authorities, is being done in a plan-led manner. In the circumstances of the last few years there has been an emphasis on that partnership model but we very much want to get to a situation where all this is clearly plan-led by all bodies. That will maximise the delivery of homes so that the private market is there and available for people in the private sector.
Further to that, given that the LDA lacks active land-management powers and has no strong CPO powers, is this something the Minister plans to address? The LDA has to negotiate bilaterally with all these State bodies. There was also something very concerning in the report about the possibility of the LDA selling off its assets. I want to know the Minister’s view on that.
Given that direct delivery is expected to deliver 6,000 homes and amount to 43% of the LDA’s delivery channel, how does the Minister intend to scale that up in the next three to four years, given that at the moment it is so heavily reliant on turnkey?
I have been heavily engaged with the LDA. I meet it regularly. It is anxious to have that direct delivery model, which is what it has been moving towards as quickly as possible. The key is that we get properties delivered. As I say, I much prefer the direct delivery model and to get the private market delivering on the private sector side of things. That is where we are heading and where much of my wider decision-making of the last few months have been driving towards. We will provide the LDA with the funding it needs to deliver the properties we want it to deliver right across the country. I am very confident that we will get there in terms of our housing delivery model and we will do so over the coming years.
Under the national development plan, nearly one in every three euro over the next five years will be into housing or into water to facilitate housing delivery. That shows the commitment from the Government to deliver. The LDA is an absolutely crucial part of that, as are local authorities. A lot of our local authorities are really delivering on social housing. Some are not and we need everyone to step up to the mark.
3. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage for an update on the number of compulsory purchase orders, CPOs, completed under the CPO activation programme and an update on the long-promised legislation to reform the CPO process as recommended by the Law Reform Commission. [54229/25]
I thank Deputy Gould for the question.
Addressing vacancy and dereliction is a key priority of the Government. The vacant homes action plan published in January 2023 set out a range of actions to be taken to return vacant and derelict properties back to use as homes. The 2025 progress report shows significant progress has been made and it is available on the Department's website.
The CPO activation programme encourages a proactive and systematic approach by local authorities to address vacancy and dereliction. Local authorities are identifying vacant and derelict properties and engaging with the owners to bring these back into use, using the wide variety of schemes now in place. This includes using their compulsory purchase powers where engagement with the owners of the properties has been unsuccessful. It is true to say that local authorities vary in their willingness to use compulsory purchase powers and the Department is working to support them to strengthen their activation response to vacancy and dereliction. This is certainly something about which I am engaging with local authorities when I go around the country. I want local authorities to use their powers under the Housing Act and the Derelict Sites Act.
The programme requires co-ordination across teams in local authorities to support a focused response and this is occurring with reorganisation and new structures being established in local authorities. From my experience in dealing with local authorities, I note that where it is done under a single directorate in the local authority it functions a lot better than where it is a cross-directorate approach. The data on the CPO activation programme the Deputy referenced in his question is currently being verified and finalised and will be published in the coming weeks.
I cannot believe the data is not available. It was supposed to be released in the second quarter of the year and here we are in October 2025 without the data. The Minister said things are going well and progressing but where is the proof? For months, I have submitted a parliamentary question every two or three weeks looking for information on dereliction, such as how many sites are derelict, how many were added to the register, how many were compulsorily purchased and so on. I want to let the Minister of State know that I submitted another question last week. Why is that information being withheld from the Dáil?
In 2023, the Government said it would add 400 buildings to the derelict sites register and that 400 of them would be purchased under CPOs. I am only taking a wild guess, but I am willing to put my reputation on the line by saying there is no way that 400 buildings were purchased under CPOs. Will the Minister of State give a commitment that those figures will be finally released this month?
Thank you, Deputy.
I want to make that point.
The Deputy will be allowed to come back in.
Will the Minister of State give that commitment today?
It is certainly my expectation that the report will be published this month. That is what my officials advise me.
Local authorities have a role in pursuing the owners of vacant and derelict properties. They can issue notices and where those notices are not acted upon, the properties are included on the register and levies are applied. The Deputy will be aware that in yesterday's budget announcement, a derelict property tax was announced by the Minister for Finance. I have engaged with the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, on this. Local authorities will have a role to play in identifying all those properties and ensuring we have an accurate register of the number of derelict properties so they can be levied and those levies can be collected by Revenue. As I said yesterday, we have had a whole suite of responses. I sat on the Oireachtas joint committee and the Deputy knows about many of the positive schemes that are in place. However, if the carrot is not used, the stick that is the tax is coming and it is coming quickly.
Today is World Vacant Homes Day and in a minute members of the Government will be outside having their photograph taken. The hypocrisy of that is unbelievable. Things are so bad that Fine Gael backbenchers introduced Private Members' legislation in July to try to force the Minister's hand on the matter of CPOs being used. Some Government backbenchers do not believe or have faith in the Ministers.
I invite the Minister and Minister of State to walk the streets of Dublin, Cork or Waterford with me and look at the dereliction. It is unbelievable. The Minister of State talked about local authorities having a part to play. Where are the support, funding and staff for local authorities? He spoke about reorganising. Reorganising is only bluff. If he really wants local authorities to start using CPOs, he will give them the money, staff and authority to do it.
To be honest, that is just a bluff of a response as well because the Deputy is well aware that the organisation and role of local authorities in this is important. He knows about the schemes, including the vacant property refurbishment grant, the repair and leasing scheme and the buy and renew scheme.
They are not working.
I did not interrupt the Deputy.
All the schemes that are in place are to bring those properties back into use. What we announced in the budget yesterday was a derelict property tax-----
In three years' time. There will not be-----
Once again, I did not interrupt the Deputy.
When will it be delivered?
Let the Minister of State respond, Deputy.
With all due respect, I did not interrupt the Deputy so I would appreciate the courtesy of allowing me to reply.
We are introducing that tax as the stick that will come if the carrot of those schemes has not been used. CPOs have a role to play. The issuing of the notices and instructing the owners of those properties to bring them back into use and activate them is also a tool some local authorities are using to good effect and others are not.
The Deputy invited me to take a stroll around Dublin, Cork or Waterford. I walk Waterford every day of the week when I am at home and tremendous work has been done through CPOs and the schemes I mentioned. I am sure in the Deputy's city of Cork good work is being done, but also that more needs to be done to tackle vacancy and dereliction.
Will the Minister of State walk with me?
No problem.
I will organise that.
No problem.
Perhaps Deputy Hearne will come with us.
I am always delighted to go for a walk with Deputy Gould.
4. Deputy Rory Hearne asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to outline the way in which his Department plans to address approval lags for cost rental equity loan, CREL, funding; the reason capital advance leasing facility, CALF, and CREL funding is being approved at different times; the number of units which have been delayed, in tabular form; and his plans to address these delays. [53906/25]
I thank the Deputy for his question.
I confirm that there are no approval lags for CREL funding. There is an approval process for funding applications to ensure compliance with the scheme conditions and value for money for the Exchequer. This is, as it should be, a requirement under public financial procedures. A necessary process should not be misrepresented as a delay.
Since July last year, the average time taken from the date the final report was submitted to the Department to the date of approval is 48 working days. In this regard, my Department has already approved more than 41 affordable housing body, AHB, projects this year, which will deliver more than 3,000 units up to 2029, while more than €400 million in CREL funding has been provided to AHBs to date in 2025. This ongoing and continued resourcing underpins the Government's commitment to the sector and I am satisfied that the approval process and support for AHBs under CREL is robust.
While my Department makes every effort to process CREL and CALF applications as quickly as possible, the size, scale, complexity and specifications of each application is significant and the assessment time required to ensure projects are viable and represent value for money can vary. In addition, where an application is for funding under both CREL and CALF, it is often the case that the applications for the two schemes are not submitted by AHBs at the same time. In such instances, clarification is sought from the relevant AHB to establish whether a project can proceed independently. Where individual progress is impossible, turnaround times can be affected. My Department encourages AHBs and local authorities to seek funding for such projects simultaneously and will take further steps, as required, to ensure this happens going forward.
We need to be honest here about what is going on. Someone is spinning something or telling porkies. It was reported on RTÉ's "Prime Time" last May that there were delays. AHBs said there were delays. It cannot be easy for approved housing bodies to be publicly critical of the Department of housing and the delays in because they rely on the Department for their funding. They said it very clearly in the public domain - as well as to me and others - that there is huge uncertainty in relation to the approval of these cost rental affordable projects and the social housing associated with it. The Minister and the Department might be putting it across that these are questions relating to the different points at which projects are approved, but we need to get straighter.
How many projects have been turned down for CREL and CALF?
I reject the premise that there have been delays. For example, 54 CREL projects have been approved since the beginning of July last year and the average number of working days was 48 for this period. The processing times for individual applications can vary for the reasons I have outlined. That said, the trend is that projects are taking less and less time to assess. For example, projects submitted from July to December 2024 took 93 working days on average, whereas projects submitted from January to July 2025 - in my time - took 15 days on average. However, it is important to note that the standard deviation is high. Each project is assessed on an individual basis so the time it takes to assess one project does not in any indicate the time taken for another project. The longest time an application was on hand with the Department before receiving approval was 200 working days, while the shortest was a single working day. That can come down to a number of different reasons. We process these as quickly as possible but it can come down to the nature of the application. We have to do value for money, look at the specifications and, at times, seek further information in relation to various applications.
We are in agreement that we want to see as many cost rental and social homes as possible built in as quick a time as possible. I do not understand why it is coming out that there are these delays. The Minister says there are no delays. I am not satisfied that is the case because AHBs are saying there are issues of delays. The Minister also said at the housing committee that there is a finite amount of funding - which of course there is - to approve these projects. However, that has to mean that there are projects going forward that are coming to the Department's desk and it is having to decide that it will not fund them. I would like to know, and we should know, how many proposals are coming forward from AHBs for social housing that the Department is deciding not to progress because the funding is not there.
We are not in that situation at the moment. As I said, we are processing these ever more quickly. As I said, it took 15 days, on average, in the first six months of this year to process these applications. I encourage applications. There is an issue there, as the Deputy rightly pointed out, in terms of CALF and CREL not being aligned. It is something that the Department with AHBs and local authorities have to work on to see how we can get them better aligned. I admit that it is a frustration for me when I sign off on a cost-rental and then I see we have to wait to get the CALF because it is on a different track. That is because the applications are coming in differently. It is something that I, with the Department, AHBs and local authorities, can get an awful lot better. I am going to work on doing that.
5. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the action he is taking to tackle high rents in the private rental sector and the increasing unaffordability of rents in the Government-funded cost rental sector. [54230/25]
The programme for Government had a clear commitment to progressively increase the renters' tax credit. Obviously, that promise was broken in yesterday's budget and as a consequence the vast majority if not all of the renters' tax credit will be swallowed up by rental increases based on the most recent data from Daft. Likewise, an increasing number of people who apply for cost rental projects are refused access because they do not meet the affordability test. They earn too much to be eligible for social housing but enough to be eligible for the unaffordable cost rental rents.
Will the Minister tell us what is in budget 2026? What actions is he going to take to tackle the rip-off rents not only in the private sector but increasingly in the cost rental sector?
On 10 June 2025, the Government approved stronger tenancy protections and greater certainty for the rental sector, including the introduction of a national rent control. From 1 March 2026, a national rent control will be introduced for all tenancies, which will limit rent increases for properties other than new build apartments to inflation at CPI up to a maximum of 2% and for new build apartments rent increases will be capped at the level of inflation, aimed at supporting investment in the construction of new apartments.
As an interim measure, the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2025 was signed into law on 19 June 2025. The Act came into operation on 20 June 2025 to immediately extend and expand the operation of rent pressure zones to cover the entire country until 28 February 2026. This ensured that all tenancies nationally were protected from rent increases exceeding 2%, pending the introduction of a national rent control in 2026.
The Government is also committed to providing more affordable rental properties through the delivery of cost rental projects and all funded cost rental projects most achieve cost covering rents that are at least 25% below comparable local market levels. Nearly 4,000 cost rental homes have been delivered by AHBs, local authorities and the LDA since the launch of Housing for All and a strong pipeline is in place. The Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, was established as a quasi-judicial independent statutory body under the residential tenancies Acts to facilitate the resolution of residential tenancy disputes and operate a national tenancy registration system. Additional resources will be allocated to the RTB to ensure the effective regulation of the sector. To this end, I am very pleased to announce that in 2026 the Exchequer funding allocation for the RTB will be increased by over 70%, to €22.8 million.
Average rents for new tenants increased by over €1,000 last year and for existing renters by almost €800. Despite the Government's renter's tax credit, the majority of renters will either be worse off or marginally better off. When we change the legislation, however, those rent increases are going to be even more dramatic for people who move tenancy or enter into a new tenancy. One thing the Minister could do is to retrospectively apply his decision to exempt corporation tax on cost rentals to the 1,200 existing LDA tenants. The LDA and private providers - if that is the Minister's intention - should be forced to pass on those savings to their tenants. Will the Minister confirm whether the corporation tax exemption on cost rentals will be applied to existing LDA tenancies? Will he also set out what measures, if any, he is going to take to ensure the very significant savings that will accrue for new cost rental tenancies by the corporation tax waiver will be passed on to tenants, whether LDA or private sector cost rental providers?
The changes will apply prospectively. That was made clear yesterday. In terms of the savings-----
Prospectively or retrospectively? Apologies; I am not heckling.
Prospectively.
So they will not apply to existing tenancies.
They will apply to new tenancies where designated as cost rental. The LDA sought this change so that it could deliver lower rents for people and that is why we agreed to it. As it is a cost rental measure, I fully expect, even through the metrics of the system, that it will result in lower rents for future tenancies.
The potential saving for a cost-rental tenant paying an average rent of €1,500 per month would be €225. That is €2,700 a year. I hope that he would insist rather than expect that the LDA provides that. Equally, the VAT reductions on apartments could also be a helpful way for reducing the rent if the VAT reduction is passed on to the AHB or LDA through Project Tosaigh or forward purchase. Is the Minister going to insist that the €20,000 or so reduction in costs to a developer will be passed on to any AHB or the LDA entering into a forward purchase agreement? Will he clarify how the VAT reduction is going to work for AHBs and the LDA when, for example, they are forward funding as opposed to forward purchasing? It simply makes no sense for the State to provide this VAT exemption for apartments currently under construction if the LDA or AHBs, which are funded by the Department, are not benefiting from a very significant reduction in costs.
All of the details around the various tax breaks, which Minister Donohoe worked on with the Department of housing to ensure we can increase the viability of apartments and get them and housing in general delivered, will be worked out over the coming weeks and then announced.
The purpose of the tax cuts is to bring about that viability so that we can get apartments that people need built. Off plan, there are over 40,000 apartments in Dublin that are ready to go but are not being built because they are not viable. The LDA was created to ensure that the cost rental model was there for people to able to benefit from it. The LDA will continue to ensure that this is the case.
Will the cost reductions to the developers be passed on to the LDA, yes or no?
6. Deputy Carol Nolan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will consider placing a pause on all wind energy developments until the new wind energy guidelines are published; when he expects the revised guidelines to be published and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52740/25]
Communities have been waiting for many years for the publication of the revised wind farm guidelines. Will the Minister pause all wind farm developments until the guidelines are published? When will we see these guidelines published?
As the Deputy will be aware, I have no ability as Minister of State with responsibility for planning to place a pause on any type of planning application, be that for housing, wind energy, infrastructural projects or any other type of development. The 2006 wind energy development guidelines will remain in force pending the finalisation of revised guidance, which is currently subject to a focused review by my Department considering matters such as noise, setback distance, shadow flicker, community obligation, community dividend and grid connections.
In conjunction with the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment, my Department has been working to advance guidance on a number of these key aspects, including the noise aspect of the guidance, to ensure they are robust and fit for purpose, having regard to a series of considerations, including but not limited to our commitments to increase the percentage of our electricity that comes from renewable sources.
In the interim, at local level, the city and county development plans set out where development is acceptable, including wind energy development. I can assure the Deputy that I am acutely conscious of the commitment in the Programme for Government 2025 - Securing Ireland's Future to prioritise the publication of the wind energy development guidance, having regard to international best practice and standards. In light of this commitment, my Department is working towards concluding the finalisation of a review of the guidance as a priority, having regard to the requirements for a public consultation and the finalisation of associated reforms and reviews included in the revision of the NPF.
I am disappointed that more has not been done in terms of protecting the rights of communities. We are awaiting revised guidelines. The current guidelines give too much leeway to wind energy companies, which do not respect many communities. I commend everyone involved in the campaign relating to Mongan bog, which is a heritage site in my constituency of Offaly. This heritage site has links to the monastic site Clonmacnoise in County Offaly. A planned wind farm there is just ludicrous.
The Minister of State mentioned a focused review, which I welcome. He also mentioned infrasound and shadow flicker, in respect of which there are significant issues. Many people have contacted me telling me that they just cannot bear the sound. Court cases have been taken regarding those issues. I hope that the revised guidelines are not published for the sake of ticking a box but do address the genuine and legitimate concerns of communities and the infrasound issue.
I will not publish anything for the sake of ticking a box. I have been in this role for six or seven months. I want to ensure that we get these guidelines right, so I have been working extensively with my officials, who have been engaging with their colleagues in the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment. All of the matters raised by the Deputy are being taken into account in the review, which is ongoing. I am aware of the draft guidelines that were published in 2019 before my time in this House or this role. A considerable number of submissions concerned noise and the issue has taken up a significant amount of time in trying to ensure that we get that element right.
I am committed to ensuring that the guidelines are finalised and there is a public consultation on the draft guidelines when they are ready. That is a priority in the Department.
I know the Minister of State mentioned public consultation but many people do not take that seriously because their experience of public consultations is that they have not been respected. Constituents from north Offaly where there are issues with sound have contacted me. They have to move livestock in their fields. These people feel they are not listened to. If we are talking about public consultation, the number one priority is that it has to be meaningful. The second thing is that we have to ensure that communities are respected and protected and that we do not have instances where this infrasound issue is allowed to go on and on, which, unfortunately, has happened.
I have raised the issue of wind energy repeatedly through parliamentary questions, most recently to the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment when I asked him whether he would provide information regarding reports on wind turbine noise. I also asked him to clarify his support for increased protection of persons affected by the noise. Rather astonishingly, the Minister admitted to me that the EPA had not commissioned any wind turbine modelling reports and that the only report the SEAI had published on the subject of wind turbine noise was an examination of the significance of noise. A lot more needs to be done on this issue.
I reiterate that it is a priority in my Department. My officials and I have been working on this for a considerable period of time. I want to ensure that we get these revised guidelines right. I take public consultation seriously. There was public consultation over the summer on exempted development and over 920 submissions were received. I have reviewed all of those so I take on board what has come in. It helps formulate policy. To get to a point of having a draft, we have to ensure that they are as accurate and complete as possible and this is what my officials have been working extensively on. I hope we will be in a position to publish those in the not-too-distant future but I want to get it right.
