Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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13. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the required funding for the provision of local authority housing in the Dublin City Council administrative area with reference to the Rebuilding Ireland action plan, which acknowledges the extent of the homelessness and housing crisis in Dublin city; the source of funding available to the council by way of grants and/or capital loans and the amounts envisaged over the course of the plan; and the grants and capital loans the council has received to date. [28731/16]

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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This is a sort of follow-on from the previous questions. It is no accident that every question we have had to date has been on housing.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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It is a big issue.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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Yes, it is one of the biggest issues we are facing in this country. I think it should be registered here that it is an emergency rather than a crisis. My question relates to the funding and grant levels being allocated to Dublin City Council through the Rebuilding Ireland action plan. How much money has been allocated to date? How much money does the Minister envisage will be allocated in the future? I will come back in on a few points after the Minister's reply.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I agree that this is the big issue for me to deal with. It is great that we are talking about these issues, rather than water. While water is a difficult political issue to deal with in some ways, as far as I am concerned, housing is where it is at in terms of changing people's lives. That is why I welcome the fact that housing has been the dominant issue in these questions. All local authorities, including Dublin City Council, already have social housing delivery targets set out to the end of 2017. The former Minister, Deputy Kelly, put that in place. It was a very ambitious plan at the time and we are building on it now. The targets in question were issued to my Department in April of last year and are available on my Department's website.

In the case of Dublin City Council, the target is 3,347 additional units to be delivered through build, buying, refurbishment and leasing programmes, supported by an allocation of almost €300 million. Funding is recouped to the local authority once approved expenditure on programmes takes place. The council submits recoupment claims on an ongoing basis.

With the publication of Rebuilding Ireland: an Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, the Government has secured additional funding for social housing delivery and has set increased national-level targets. Accordingly, increased targets and funding will be allocated to all local authorities. It is important that these are based on the 2016 summary of social housing assessments, and this part of the plan will be done before the end of the year. These assessments are now well advanced and will provide updated figures of national and local housing need. The use of the latest social housing assessments will ensure that new social housing targets and funding are designed in line with housing need. I expect to be advising local authorities of their new targets early in 2017. In the meantime, my Department continues to engage with all local authorities, including Dublin City Council, to expedite social housing delivery, including additional projects that would take local authorities beyond their 2015 targets.

The funding that will be provided to Dublin City Council to support its delivery of social housing will be commensurate with the target set and drawn from the range of sources and programmes set out in pillar two of Rebuilding Ireland, including capital and current funding programmes.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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According to the September report of the housing committee in Dublin City Council, 314 houses have been completed to date, including housing body units. Given that 23,000 people are on the housing waiting list and given the crisis relating to homeless families, Dublin City Council will need far more funding.

This goes back to the question earlier relating to O'Devaney Gardens. A motion was put through the council to ensure that all houses built in O'Devaney Gardens would either be social housing or units offered to people who had applied for mortgages. That is the way to go. If we add the private element to the plan, there is no provision in the system to ensure these units will be owner-occupied. Most would probably go out to private rent from landlords, investors and so on. There is no guarantee that it will be a good mix. Most units will be rented or social housing. There is a need to match the numbers on the list to the amount of houses built. To my mind, this will not be done by giving developers the opportunity to make vast amounts of money on these sites, which are public lands.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Obviously Dublin City Council faces more pressures than any other council in terms of numbers. Dublin City Council also has higher targets than anyone else and it has more money available as a result. I am glad to say that Dublin City Council is actually well ahead of target and of where it is supposed to be by the end of next year. In fact, the council is already nearly there through a series of building, buying, refurbishment and leasing programmes and so on. Of course we will have to review the council's targets and the budgets that go with those targets.

We do not have the detailed picture of what will be proposed for O'Devaney Gardens yet. All we have is an agreement in principle to a split of private, affordable and social housing. We want a competitive process to come up with the best plan with these guidelines in place as well as the other guidelines Dublin City Council is seeking to put in place in order that we get a proposal councillors can then vote on and pass. If they vote on it and pass it, we will look to fund it.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent)
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Is the target for Dublin City Council to have 23,000 houses built over the next five years? The Minister referred to Dublin City Council meeting its targets. What are the council's targets for this year? A total of 314 units have been completed and 23,000 families are on the waiting list. Are we saying the targets are going to be met depending on the need? I am not hearing that. The reason for so much suspicion is because the last Government did not deliver. We are hoping that the Minister will deliver better on these issues. If the figure is 23,000, are we saying that in five years' time we are going to build or buy to ensure those 23,000 families will be housed?

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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This year, approximately 17,000 tenancies will be put in place for people looking for secure accommodation. This will come from a broad range of measures, including new build, leasing, the rental accommodation scheme, increased numbers on housing assistant payment scheme and so on. The target for Dublin City Council at the moment is to deliver 3,347 additional units through build, buy, refurbishment and leasing programmes by the end of next year. The council is making great progress on that. The challenge for the council is that it has vast numbers of people who are homeless and on housing lists who are demanding more. By early next year we will have a clearer picture of the appropriate target for Dublin City Council. Then, we will look to see how we can accommodate that from a funding point of view. The overall plan, set out in the Rebuilding Ireland document, is to deliver an extra 47,000 social housing units by the end of 2021.