Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour)
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Question 359: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government his views on whether the provision of 10,000 new social housing units each year for the next three years is necessary to clear the backlog in local authority housing waiting lists; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45029/08]

Michael Finneran (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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Despite the challenges that the current economic situation presents, meeting the relevant targets set out in the Government Programme, the social partnership agreement Towards 2016, and the National Development Plan 2007-2013 continues to be the overriding objective of the Social Housing Investment Programme.

The commitment entered into under Towards 2016 was to achieve 27,000 social housing "starts" over the three year period 2007 to 2009. In terms of delivery, we set out to reach the first one third of this 27,000 unit target — or 9,000 "starts" — in 2007 and we exceeded this target, with a total of 9,061 "starts" achieved across the local authority and voluntary and co-operative housing programmes and the Rental Accommodation Scheme. All the indications available to us at this stage would suggest that 2008 will be another year of significant delivery under the main social housing programmes.

Looking to the future, the results of the 2008 housing needs assessment show a significant increase in overall net housing need, against a background of a significantly more constrained fiscal environment. While this presents a challenging scenario, the €1.66 billion in funding provided for housing in the 2009 Estimates will allow us to maintain strong momentum towards meeting our commitments in Towards 2016 and our longer-term goals under the National Development Plan. In particular, progress will be underpinned by the continued roll-out of the Rental Accommodation Scheme and new initiatives including the sourcing of accommodation for social housing through long-term lease arrangements and the introduction of an incremental purchase scheme through which lower income households can access home ownership.