Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies Robert Troy and Sean Fleming for raising this matter. As Minister of State with responsibility for housing, I am keenly aware of the challenges the Government faces in delivering housing supports to a range of vulnerable households and groups. The difficulties facing the State's finances and the necessity to reduce public expenditure to sustainable levels are having an impact on capital programmes all across the public service and my Department's housing programme is no exception. Members will be aware and Fianna Fáil Deputies in particular should be aware of the reason for such reduced allocations. However, the amount of capital funding available has decreased significantly in recent years along the lines highlighted in the medium-term Exchequer framework for infrastructure and capital investment from 2012 to 2016. Regrettably, these steps are necessary to bring stability to the public finances and, as a result, capital spending on housing programmes in 2013 will be lower than last year. I could spend time explaining the reason for this but certainly, the previous Government has a great deal more responsibility for it than has any action taken by the current Administration. Unfortunately, one is faced with a situation in which capital budgets right across the board have been cut.

That said, I am determined to make the best use of this limited budget and to target those who are most in need. To this end, the social housing supply initiatives are now nearly completely focused on meeting the housing needs of elderly people, people with a disability and the homeless. Approximately €120 million is being dedicated to this important programme in 2013. Reduced capital budgets inevitably give rise to difficult choices and decisions in allocating the available funding. In the case of new social housing supply, there are alternative supply routes through the leasing of properties to augment the smaller numbers coming from the traditional capital funded construction programmes. Last year, more than 6,000 additional social housing units were provided, taking all supply routes into account, and I am confident that a further 5,000 units will be provided this year. These difficult choices mean balancing a dwindling capital budget across a range of important areas and spreading those scarce resources in a way that meets the needs of those concerned as best one can. The capital budget must cover regeneration, improvements and energy retrofitting of the social housing stock, as well as adaptation grants for private housing.

I also am conscious that substantial grant funding was provided for improving and adapting private houses in recent years. In the past two years, almost 22,000 householders benefited under the schemes. This year, I am allocating 12.4% of the housing budget or approximately €34.2 million to the grant schemes, compared with 13.2% in 2012. In allocating the available funding across all 34 city and county councils, I have done so in as transparent and as fair a way as possible. Between them, local authorities currently have contractual commitments from last year in respect of approved grants totalling €18 million. Local authorities were always encouraged to maintain continuity with regard to approving and paying grants and commitments carried forward into the new financial year always had first call on the available funding. This year, each authority was allocated the full amount of their contractual commitments. The balance of the available funding was allocated on the basis of each authority's share of the new applications on hand in January 2013. I believe this to be a fair and equitable way of apportioning the funding. However, I appreciate this approach has resulted in lower than expected allocations for some authorities. Deputy Fleming should be aware that, regrettably, only Laois County Council reported a zero commitment in respect of contractual commitments on approved works, which has had a major effect on the allocation to Laois in particular. I accept that particular difficulties may arise in some local authorities in the course of 2013 but have a contingency in place to deal with this. I have set aside a capital reserve of approximately €2 million and will consider applications from local authorities for a supplementary allocation once the initial allocation has been exhausted. I hope this gives Deputies some light at the end of the tunnel but it genuinely was a fair way in which to allocate the money, that is, first to the commitments that already existed and then on the basis of the applications that came in from the various counties.

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