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

Last Monday, I published a status report for social housing construction projects which lists all approved projects up to the end of 2016, including those at various stages of advancement through planning, design and construction and those delivered in 2016. This report is available on the Department's website, and I encourage people to look at it.

The status report includes 16 projects of various scale for the Tipperary County Council area, either recently completed or being advanced.

On top of this list of projects either recently completed or in the pipeline, I continue to approve further new social housing construction projects. These include, in the case of Tipperary, a further €9.5 million for the construction of 60 new social homes in Thurles, Newport and Carrick-on-Suir, which I approved earlier this month.

Local authorities have also been undertaking the targeted acquisition of properties, and over the past 12 months, I have provided almost €10 million to Tipperary County Council for this purpose.

Tipperary has also benefited from departmental funding to return vacant social housing to use, with around 276 such units supported through an Exchequer investment of over €3 million between 2014 and 2016.

Local authorities and approved housing bodies, AHBs, are also actively engaging in partnerships with private developers to deliver turnkey projects which are making an important contribution to meeting social housing need. To date, nine local authorities are engaged in 24 such contracts around the country and more such projects are possible for Tipperary or other local authorities where the housing units are suitable for social housing in these areas.

Other programmes through which we are working with Tipperary and other local authorities to meet the needs of those on the housing waiting list include the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, the housing assistance payment, HAP, and various leasing arrangements under the Department's social housing current expenditure programme. This blended delivery approach ensures that a range of delivery mechanisms are available to be used, as appropriate, in a manner that takes account of the housing market and housing need in specific areas. I accept the Deputy's frustration at the pace of delivery of some of the construction projects but I think there is a lot moving in Tipperary.

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