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

It is a very pertinent question. The management and maintenance of the local authority housing stock, including pre-letting repairs to vacant properties, implementation of a planned maintenance programme - which will be important and on which I will expand - and carrying out responsive repairs, is a matter for each individual local authority, and in the main they do that job very well. The quality varies from county to county.

Local authorities and elected members have a very important role to play in this regard by making adequate budgetary provision for housing repairs and cyclical maintenance by utilising the housing rental income available to them as part of the annual budgetary process. Local authorities are working to transition from a largely response and voids-based approach to housing stock management and maintenance - which is important as by the end of this year we will have brought back about 8,500 void properties since the Government came into office - to a planned maintenance approach, which we have committed to in Housing for All. This will require the completion of stock condition surveys by all local authorities and the subsequent development of strategic and informed work programmes.

My Department will continue to support local authorities in their work in this area. We have ring-fenced €5 million to support local authorities' transition to the planned maintenance approach in 2023. That will be a more proactive way of doing it. Much of our social housing stock is now with approved housing bodies too. We welcome that. They have their own maintenance programmes. While the transition is ongoing, we continue to provide voids funding under the 2023 programme to support the refurbishment and re-letting this year of a minimum of 2,300 vacant social homes, with funding of over €31 million available right now for voids and planned maintenance. If a local authority believes it can do more or has older voids, I want it to send submissions and we will not be found wanting in funding additional void work.

Furthermore, €87 million is available for energy-efficiency work in 2023. This programme will see a major plank of additional funding being made available to local authorities for planned maintenance works into the future.

See this speech in context