Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 144: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government the provision currently being made to meet the housing requirements of persons whose homes are being repossessed by lending institutions other than local authorities in view of the obligation on the local authorities under the Housing Acts to meet the housing requirements of such persons; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11934/11]

Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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The Government is acutely conscious of the difficulties many households are facing in terms of mortgage arrears and our Programme for Government sets out a range of credible and meaningful measures that will help households challenged to meet mortgage commitments.

However, it is important to note, particularly for households worried about possible repossession, that the level of repossessions in Ireland has actually been quite low. The Central Bank's quarterly data series on Residential Mortgage Arrears and Repossessions shows that the level of repossession activity in the courts, with respect to the primary residence of borrowers is not high when compared with the scale of mortgage arrears pertaining. For example, the level of home repossessions per hundred thousand mortgages in the UK is over 5 times greater than the Irish rate. It can also be observed that the majority of repossessions taking place are not by way of a court order, rather via voluntary surrenders and abandonments.

Repossession is even rarer for local authority borrowers with only 128 repossessions across all local authority areas carried out in the period 2005 – 2010. Clearly, where repossession does occur it is a last resort and my Department is aware that it generally involves those households in arrears who refuse to engage with the local authority lender.

In terms of the social housing supports available for households who have had their homes repossessed and are unable to provide for alternative accommodation from own resources, the Government is committed to responding more quickly and on a larger scale to these and other acute needs.

This will necessitate a continuing restructuring of the social housing investment programme to allow for delivery of new social housing through more flexible funding models, in order to enable us to meet our social housing delivery commitments in the period ahead while protecting, to the greatest extent possible, programmes targeting special needs. The social housing leasing initiative and, in particular, the Rental Accommodation Scheme will each play their part as long term mainstream social housing supports.

The Government is also committed to developing other funding mechanisms that will increase the supply of permanent new social housing. Such mechanisms will include options to purchase, build to lease, and the sourcing of loan finance by approved housing bodies, including from the Housing Finance Agency, for construction and acquisition.