Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Broughan for his good wishes. I appreciate them.

Deputy Broughan may have heard it before but I personally am determined to deal with this issue for many of the reasons he stated. It has been re-prioritised by Government. It is a top priority. I will give all the hours I can to try and deal with this issue because it is wrong that we have such a housing situation in this country. Given the history, particularly over the past 15 to 20 years, it is quite a phenomenon.

Last year, a national assessment of the need for social housing support was carried out. The results of the assessment, which were published in December 2013, show that, nationally, as at 7 May 2013, just under 90,000 households had qualified for social housing support with housing authorities throughout the country.

The Dublin region accounted for approximately a third of this figure, indicating that there clearly continues to be a high demand for social housing in these local authority areas which needs to be addressed.

Every Government since the founding of the State has been asked to increase provision of social housing. The significant numbers referred to represent unprecedented challenges on the budgetary front. There is no single solution and it will not be done overnight. We are, however, moving in the right direction, while continuing to protect the most vulnerable and disadvantaged as best as possible. It is, and continues to be, my Department's objective to maximise the delivery of social housing using all of the resources available.

It is clear that the present and foreseeable economic context in which we must address social housing need is such that innovative, indeed challenging, solutions must be found which will harness new funding streams. Under action 8 of Construction 2020 - A Strategy for a Renewed Construction Sector, a social housing strategy will be published by the third quarter of 2014. My intention is the social housing strategy will be both challenging and innovative, as well as providing the basis for an enhanced approach to social housing provision. It will contain clear measurable actions that will be taken to increase the supply of social housing and, most importantly, reduce the number of people on waiting lists.

The core objectives of the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, were to reform the approach towards providing accommodation in the private rented sector for long-term dependants under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme while contributing to the attainment of better value for money for the State in the provision of long-term accommodation options. Those objectives are as relevant today as they were when the scheme commenced in late 2004. While times have changed in the area of housing, particularly in the provision of social housing, little has changed in so far as RAS is concerned.

Far from collapsing, the scheme remains one of the principal mechanisms available to local authorities to provide suitable quality accommodation for those in need of housing. Up to the end of May 2014, almost 49,500 households had been transferred by local authorities from rent supplement and housed directly under RAS and other social housing options. RAS has and continues to be a successful programme which has achieved considerable output levels to date and delivered quality housing to a large number of households. The figures speak for themselves.

That said it needs to be borne in mind that it is difficult to achieve any large-scale delivery as many of the transfers are done on a case-by-case basis with individual property owners. One of the reasons the social housing leasing initiative was introduced was to facilitate an approach which would allow delivery on a larger scale and leasing continues to represent an essential element of supply within social housing supports generally. Furthermore, the introduction of the housing assistance payment, HAP, this year will provide a further additional form of housing support to meet the challenges presented in addressing overall housing need. The relevant legislation for HAP has just completed its journey through the Houses and will be enacted in the coming days.

An administrative pilot for HAP is already under way in Limerick City and County Council. With the legislation to be enacted next week, the scheme will then roll out to a further six local authorities identified. As for overall supply, the recent injection of €46 million for social housing, on top of the original housing budget of more than €500 million, I now expect the final output across all social housing programmes for 2014 to be approximately 6,000 new housing units.

Every avenue to deliver social housing will be explored. This morning I met the County and City Management Association, CCMA, expressing how urgent this issue is and that they co-operate and work closely with the Department in tackling it. I am going through all the various funding mechanisms available in detail. I will continue to work on delivering a strategy which we hope we can all get behind after the summer.

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