Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In line with the commitments of the programme for Government, I will be publishing an action plan for housing within the Government’s first 100 days. As Minister, I will be vigorously pursuing the earliest possible advancement of the construction and acquisition of new housing units to meet the targets under the Social Housing Strategy 2020.

On the acquisition of social housing, local authorities have delegated sanction to acquire houses and apartments up to a value of €600,000 in one transaction. In 2015, more than 1,000 new social housing units were purchased by local authorities, and that focus will continue in 2016. Authorities have been urged to be ambitious in this regard and funding is available in 2016 to support such ambition. The increased funding overall for housing from 2015 to 2016 is about €143 million, which is due to the previous Minister's prioritisation of this area within Government.

It is certainly not the case that there has been a relatively low level of approvals for new social housing projects by my Department since January 2015. To date, almost €680 million has been allocated for more than 3,900 social housing new builds, turnkey developments and acquisitions. This has kick-started social housing construction to a level that has not been seen for many years, but I accept that it is still not at the level it needs to be.

In my first week as Minister, I met with the chief executives of the local authorities and discussed with them their ideas and proposals to expedite delivery of social housing. This dialogue will be developed further as we progress towards finalising the new action plan for housing. As part of that action plan, I will be publishing the response from each of the local authorities, particularly the ones where there is real housing pressure. We will be publishing their emergency response plans for the first six months of that housing strategy so that everybody can see the level of ambition within each local authority. We will be doing everything we can to make sure that ambition is supported within the Department.

See this speech in context