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

I thank Deputy Broughan for raising this issue. It is a critical issue for me as well as for Deputy Broughan and I strongly support the issue of construction whenever we have the funds to do it. I realise it is a particular problem in Dublin. This morning I met Dublin City Council assistant manager, Mr. Dick Brady, whom Deputy Broughan mentioned, and his officials regarding homelessness. The Dublin area gets approximately 70% of the money available for homelessness in the country. It is approximately €30 million again this year and it was similar last year. We will continue to work with them to address that issue.

The Government's housing policy statement, published in June 2011, reaffirms our focus on meeting the most acute needs of households applying for social housing support from within the resources available. Our social housing programme is framed in a manner which optimises the delivery of social housing and the return for the resources invested. We are tailoring the use of available Exchequer supports to prevailing conditions and exploring the full range of solutions to address housing needs. Delivery is being significantly facilitated through more flexible funding models such as the rental accommodation scheme and leasing, but we are also developing other funding mechanisms that will increase the supply of permanent new social housing.

Traditional models of large-scale local authority social housing construction are not feasible in the current economic circumstances, which is why the housing policy statement recognises that the approved housing body sector must play a key role in addressing social housing need. The Government is committed to exploring and developing such funding mechanisms as will increase the supply of new social housing. Such mechanisms will include options to purchase, build-to-lease and the sourcing of loan finance by approved housing bodies for construction and acquisition.

In this regard, I am conscious that the move from capital funded programmes of construction and acquisition by approved housing bodies to more Revenue-funded options presents challenges. I am therefore developing an enabling regulatory framework for the sector that will provide support and assurance both to the sector itself and to its external partners as it takes on the expanded role envisaged for it by Government and to underline its status as a viable and attractive investment opportunity for financial institutions. My Department is actively working with the sector on the development of a voluntary code which I expect most bodies will endorse. This code, which I hope to launch in the coming months, will serve as a learning opportunity for the sector and for my Department as we develop a longer-term statutory framework that will best support the enhanced role of approved housing bodies, AHBs.

I am satisfied that the widened range of schemes to facilitate social housing delivery, and the innovative approach being adopted, will enable us to maximize the delivery of social housing within the very burdensome current financial constraints. As soon as those constraints are beginning to lift we will review the construction area. The importance of a housing sector built on the pillars of choice, fairness and equity across tenures is central to the approach being taken by this Government to the housing sector. Providing local authorities and approved housing bodies with a suite of options that can be tailored to meet different categories of housing need is central to this Government's policy approach. We have to respond to the need that is there in whatever flexible ways we can to provide homes for people who need them.

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