Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this important issue. The case study she has presented is obviously challenging for the family involved. A key priority for the Government is that everybody should have access to sustainable and good quality housing to purchase or rent at an affordable price, built to a high standard and located close to essential services, offering a high quality of life. The Government plans to increase the supply of housing to an average of 33,000 units per year over the next decade. This includes the delivery of 90,000 social homes, 36,000 affordable purchase and 18,000 cost rental homes by 2030. Housing for All is supported by an investment package of more than €4 billion per annum.

For 2023, the Government has agreed to an increased provision for social housing acquisitions and my Department provided funding for local authorities and, in certain cases, approved housing bodies, AHBs, to acquire at least 1,500 social homes. The additional acquisitions have focused primarily on properties where a tenant is in receipt of social housing supports and has received a notice of termination due to the landlord’s intention to sell the property. For 2024, the Government has again agreed to an increased provision to acquire 1,500 social homes. Acquisitions must be within acquisition cost guidelines issued by my Department. These guidelines are reviewed and updated as appropriate by my Department, usually on an annual basis. An independent valuation must also be obtained for each acquisition, in line with established practice for social housing acquisitions.

The capital assistance scheme, CAS, is one of the main sources within the Department's Vote to provide funding to AHBs for the construction and acquisition of homes for priority categories. While activity under the CAS programme is strong overall, a particular area seeing strong CAS-AHB activity is the response to homelessness and the prevention of same, with tenant in situacquisitions ramping up significantly.

My Department does not hold data on the specific timelines for individual acquisitions by AHBs. The time required to complete a social housing acquisition can vary, depending on the circumstances involved. In the case referred to by the Senator, the process has been unduly long for the family concerned. Individual property purchases can be delayed for various reasons, such as the owner not having full legal title, various planning issues, outstanding property taxes, general contractual conditions of sale not being in place and so on. As the process is also reliant on timely progress from the vendor’s legal and sales agents, timeframes vary from purchase to purchase.

Local authorities take appropriate steps to ensure that their first response will be to support households to try to prevent homelessness in cases where tenants have been served with a notice of termination by their landlord. When a local authority decides the appropriate course of action is to acquire a property via an approved housing body, my Department will support these acquisitions. The tenant in situ acquisitions programme has proven to be a very successful measure to prevent homelessness where a tenant receives a notice of termination and is making a significant impact in providing secure long-term tenancies.

I will address the issue further in my supplementary response. The case she has outlined involves a significant challenge for the family. There is no doubt the process can be stressful, particularly for young family members. I do not have the numbers to hand in terms of those approved. I can certainly get a county-by-county breakdown. We have that information in the Department. As I stated, there are various issues that may cause turnaround on the scheme to be held up. I again recognise that in this case it seems the family has had a very lengthy wait.