Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Question 182: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the level of social housing completions between January and September 2005, accounted for just 5.8% of the total houses built within that timeframe; if his attention has further been drawn to the fact that just 6.7% of the 76,954 houses built in 2004 were for social housing purposes; and the reason social housing completions fell by 21.6% between 2003 and 2004. [5303/06]

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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My Department is currently compiling the output figures for social housing for 2005 on the basis of returns from local authorities. These figures will be published in due course in the Department's annual housing statistics bulletin for 2005 and on the Department's website at www.environ.ie. Based on returns to date, I expect this will show an increase on the total number of houses constructed and purchased by local authorities and the voluntary sector in 2004, which was 6,117 units.

The Government's response to the housing need cannot be judged based on new social housing units built as a percentage of the overall supply. First, the growth in overall output of housing in Ireland over the past decade has been unprecedented and this in itself is providing greater choice and access to housing for our growing population. The year 2005 represented a further record year with nearly 81,000 new homes completed.

Second, we now have in place a broad range of targeted measures to meet the needs of lower income groups. In addition to building new homes, local authorities also purchase some second-hand homes for social housing applicants, vacancies arise in the stock and a range of affordable housing schemes are also available. In 2004, some 12,000 households benefited through these various measures. There are record levels of housing output and increased investment in social and affordable housing measures, the positive impacts of which can be seen in the 10% decrease in waiting lists for local authority housing over the period 2002 to 2005.

In December 2005, the Government launched a new housing policy framework, Building Sustainable Communities, setting out the Government's vision for housing policy over the coming years. The framework envisages a substantial increase in investment involving €4 billion in Exchequer capital between 2006 and 2008, which will allow for some 50,000 households to be assisted over the coming three years. We will also be implementing a programme of reforms particularly focused on improving the quality of the social housing environment.