Councils are reluctant to use the single-stage process because they take on more risk if something goes wrong, says Sinn Féin TD and housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin.
Three of the four Dublin-area councils didn’t use a fast-track system for funding social housing for any of the homes that they built last year.
To access funding for new social homes, councils usually have to go back and forth with the Department of Housing, through what is known as the four-stage approvals process.
The system has come in for regular criticism as slow and bureaucratic, taking, on average, more than 120 weeks, and so creating long lead-in times for new homes.
The former Housing Minister, Fianna Fáil TD Darragh O’Brien, had put forward a simpler process for smaller housing projects, which would help councils to speed up delivery, he said.
Under this simpler process, councils can get funding approved within four weeks, according to the Department of Housing’s website.
Department of Housing data shows many eligible developments completed last year.
But most councils didn’t use the fast-track process for funding to deliver any social homes in 2024.
Nationwide, councils used the single-stage approvals process to build just 49 homes that year.
Sinn Féin TD and housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said that councils don’t like the fast-track process because they have to take on more of the risk if anything goes wrong.
“If it were a more efficient process, local authorities would use it,” he says. “So it clearly doesn’t do what they claimed it would do.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Housing didn’t directly answer a query as to why councils aren’t using the single-stage system.
UCD professor Michelle Norris, who sat on the Housing Commission, says the four-stage approvals funding process includes duplication and is too slow.
The commission recommended that all social housing developments be approved in a single application and that responsibility for approving plans should shift from the Department of Housing to the Housing Agency, she said.
For most developments, the Department of Housing checks councils' plans at four stages during the design and tendering process.
The target for this whole four-stage process, from start to finish – including architects drawing up plans and tendering for a builder – is 59 weeks.
But in reality, it takes on average 128 weeks to get from kick-off to builders on site, according to a review carried out by the Housing Commission.
Local authorities preparing a construction project continue to perform other tasks in parallel to this four-stage approval process, a Department of Housing spokesperson said.
So that the time taken by the department to review funding submissions “is not dead time” for the councils, the spokesperson said.
These other tasks include things like public consultation, site investigations, enabling works, tenders for architects, developing planning applications, and preparing tender documents for detailed designs and for construction contracts, he said.
Some smaller projects that cost less than €8 million can skip past this. But most councils are opting not to, or only to do that rarely.
Fingal County Council used the single-stage approvals process for 11 homes that it completed last year at Bowden Court in Swords, according to the Department of Housing Report.
But it doesn’t have any plans for homes using that process going forward, according to the report.
Dublin City Council didn’t use it for any homes completed last year. But it does have plans for three developments, with a total of 10 homes, for which funding has been approved under the single-stage process, says the report.
South Dublin County Council didn’t complete any homes funded with that process last year. But it is using the single-stage approvals process to fund four projects, two of which are currently being built, the spokesperson said.
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council didn’t use the single-stage approvals process and doesn’t have any formal plans to use it outlined in the report.
In 2020, O’Brien, then Minister for Housing, said he was increasing the amount that councils could spend through the less onerous single-process from €2 million to €6 million.
And that, he said, would allow councils to “have greater autonomy in constructing social housing, leading to accelerated delivery”. It was increased again later to €8 million.
Who doesn’t want less paperwork?
Ó Broin says that councils are reluctant to use the single-stage process because they take on more risk if something goes wrong.
“When they use the single-stage process, if something goes wrong, they have to fund the extra costs,” he says. “It's really, really problematic.”
Say the builder goes on site and finds archaeological excavation is unexpectedly needed, he says. The council would have to cover that themselves, he said.
Whereas, under the four-stage process, the council could go back to the Department of Housing for additional funding.
Ó Broin says there should be one streamlined process for all sizes of developments. “If through no fault of their own extra costs arise, they should be recouped from the department,” he said.
Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan said that is also his understanding of why councils might be reluctant to use the single-stage process.
It’s not clear that the Department of Housing will cover additional costs, he said.
The Housing Commission’s report last year recommended that all social housing development should move to a single-stage approvals process.
“Under the four-stage approval process, the current average time to proceed from initiation to final approval and commencement on site is 128 weeks,” says the report.
The process can take longer than that in some cases, and it causes delays in the delivery of social homes. “The system is extremely slow,” says Norris, who was on the commission.
“Some of the stages we felt weren’t adding any value,” she says. Architects in the Department of Housing review all of the detailed design work, when that has already been done by the architects designing the scheme, she says.
Housing charities – also known as approved housing bodies (AHBs) – buy and build lots of social homes, but councils seem to be lagging behind when it comes to delivery.
Norris says that housing charities usually apply for funding to the Housing Agency, using a different process, which is less clunky. “AHBs can get approvals far quicker,” she says.
“It is a problem because the councils are land hoarding,” says architect and housing commentator Mel Reynolds, who crunches the numbers each year and highlights the fact that councils are still building few homes.
Dublin City Council delivered 221 new build social homes last year, he said. It built 35 of them and bought the rest from private developers as “turnkeys”. It bought most of those, 161, at Newtown on Malahide Road in Dublin 13, he said.
When figures came out in April showing how many social homes were built last year, the current Housing Minister, Fianna Fail TD James Browne, said that the government needs to ensure the sustainability and scalability of social homes.
“The best way to do this is to have local authorities delivering new-build homes on local authority lands,” he said.
Councillors face tough decisions as vulnerable and desperate groups make their cases for priority amid a shortage of social homes.
The government is reportedly looking into the idea.
“I just cannot get over that they didn’t maintain the same level of funding at a minimum, because it’s a bloody great scheme,” says Fine Gael Councillor Tom O’Leary, of the homelessness-prevention scheme.
A spokesperson for the Dublin Region Homeless Executive said its priority was “to ensure there is an adequate provision of accommodation for people experiencing homelessness”.
