Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy has found that Minister for Housing James Browne failed to comply with Dáil rules when refusing to release data on social and affordable housing schemes.
Ms Murphy was responding to a complaint by Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin, who had written to her asking to examine responses to parliamentary questions he put down but argued had not been properly answered.
The Dublin Mid-West TD had sought data on five different social and affordable programmes, including applications for funding, approvals, and how many applications were pending.
Mr Ó Broin outlined that he had sought the information because of what he believed were “significant delays in the approval of social and affordable housing scheme applications” which would have a knock-on effect on output.
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However, the data was refused on the basis of commercial sensitivity, he said, with the Department of Housing also saying it would be too cumbersome to collate.
Following correspondence with the department, including its top civil servant Graham Doyle, and a series of further parliamentary questions in March, Mr Ó Broin submitted a complaint to the Ceann Comhairle.
In a letter to the Oireachtas, he said it was his view that the information was being “deliberately withheld” as it would confirm a “very significant problem with social and affordable housing scheme approvals”.
Ms Murphy contacted the Department of Housing on foot of the complaint, which told her that it had provided some data in response, but that the format of his query fell outside the “normal reporting process”.
“The information sought is not readily available and its compilation would involve a disproportionate amount of time and work,” the department told the Ceann Comhairle, adding that period publications it compiled contained “the majority” of the data being sought.
In a response to Mr Ó Broin, Ms Murphy wrote that she had decided to examine the issue under Dáil standing orders (the rules under which the business of the house is organised) which dictate that ministers must “address each and every request for information” contained in a question from a TD submitted through the Oireachtas.
Having reviewed the question and replies, Ms Murphy told the Sinn Féin TD that she agreed with him that the replies “do not comply with the provisions of the standing order”.
The exchanges were first reported in Tuesday’s edition of the Irish Examiner.
She said that an argument from the department that the information was not readily available and would take a disproportionate amount of time and work to compile was “not a sufficient basis … to either disallow or fail to adequately reply to a question”.
“The Minister shall be requested to provide an indicative timeline as to when this data can be collated.” She added that the decision had been communicated to the Minister for Housing.
A spokesperson for the Department of Housing said in a statement on Tuesday evening: “The assertion that funding is being delayed or not provided to local authorities and Approved Housing Boards (AHBs) for social and affordable housing is not correct. The department continues to both receive and issue approvals and make payments to AHBs and local authorities. Both this week and last a number of applications for new-build social housing projects were approved and approvals issued.
“Since the beginning of this year the Department has released funding of over €1.1 billion for the social and affordable housing build programmes to local authorities and approved housing bodies and payments continue to issue."
