Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the question. He will be aware that Housing for All is our Government’s plan to increase the supply of housing to an average of 33,000 units per year over the next decade. This target includes the delivery of about 90,000 new social homes and just short of 54,000 new affordable homes from 2022 to 2030. As I mentioned, Housing for All is supported by an investment package of more than €4 billion each year, through an overall combination of €12 billion in direct Exchequer funding, €3.5 billion through the Land Development Agency, LDA, and €5 billion through the Housing Finance Agency, HFA. Under our plan, we will deliver 47,600 new build social homes from 2022 to 2026.

We are setting individual targets now for the delivery of social housing and they have been provided to each local authority under the Housing for All plan. I have asked the local authorities in Tipperary and elsewhere to develop housing delivery action plans and those plans must be submitted to me, the Minister of State with responsibility in this area, Deputy Burke, and the Department by December 2021. These plans will set out details on how and when local authorities will deliver their housing targets. Turning to Tipperary specifically, the county council there has been issued a target to deliver 887 new build social homes between 2022 and 2026. This includes a target for 2022 of 230 new builds. We will also allow a small amount of acquisition in that space, but those 230 homes are new builds.

Details on social housing delivery for each local authority are included in the social housing statistics published quarterly by my Department. We want to have transparency in this endeavour for elected representatives, including Deputies and councillors. The social housing construction status report, which is also published quarterly by my Department, will include scheme-level detail on social housing building activity. Therefore, we have provided the finance, we now have the target and we await the housing delivery plans from Tipperary County Council to arrive before the end of December.

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