Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 188: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government his views on offering currently vacant houses to such applicants with a view to meeting their housing requirements and reducing expenditure at the same time; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25597/09]

Michael Finneran (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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My Department has a number of initiatives in place which will facilitate the use of currently vacant houses to meet the accommodation needs of both households on local authority housing waiting lists and rent supplement recipients with a long term housing need.

In the first instance, the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS), which was introduced in 2004, is designed to cater for the long term housing needs of rent supplement households. The core objectives of the RAS are to reform the approach towards providing accommodation within the private rented sector for long-term dependents on rent supplement and to enhance the response of housing authorities to meeting long-term housing need. One of the main features of the scheme is that housing authorities, in sourcing accommodation for these households, make use of the private and voluntary sector and enter into contractual arrangements to secure medium to long-term availability of rented accommodation.

To supplement this scheme, I have introduced two additional initiatives in recent months, which will make further use of vacant stock and assist authorities in meeting housing needs. Firstly, in February 2009, I introduced new arrangements for the delivery of social housing whereby housing authorities may enter into long term leases of private dwellings for periods of between 10 and 20 years, taking advantage of the extent of available property in the market and at the same time providing a more efficient and effective use of public resources in meeting housing needs. Secondly, my Department has advised housing authorities that they can consider transferring unsold affordable housing stock to both the leasing scheme and the RAS, where appropriate.