Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)
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Question 63: To ask the Minister for Finance the reason Ireland is not using European Regional Development Funds for the insulation of social housing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15935/11]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Ireland has been allocated in total €901m in Structural Funding for the 2007-13 programming period with €750m assigned to the Regional Competitiveness and Employment (RCE) Objective. Ireland's National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) sets out the policy context through which the RCE allocation may be applied. This is implemented through three Operational Programmes: the Border, Midlands and Western (BMW) OP, the Southern and Eastern (S&E) OP, both co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and the Human Capital Investment OP, which is co-funded by the European Social Fund (ESF). The balance of €151m is for smaller Territorial Cooperation programmes including PEACE III, INTERREG IVA and the Ireland Wales programme.

When Ireland was preparing its NSRF and OPs, the regulations governing the use of Structural Funds precluded expenditure on housing for those Member States that acceded to the European Union before 1st May 2004. The regulations were amended in 2009 to allow for energy efficiency improvements and the use of renewable energy in existing low income housing.

Following the regulation change, my Department had discussions with the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) and the BMW and S&E Managing Authorities to consider whether such energy efficient measures could be included in our structural funds programmes. However, it was concluded that these schemes were not compatible with the complex EU Structural Funds eligibility and audit criteria.

It should be noted that Ireland, in any case, has sufficient expenditure in the ERDF funded OPs to draw down our full structural fund allocation to support economic and social development throughout Ireland so no additional funding would have been made available.

Nonetheless, it should be emphasised that the upgrade of social housing is fully catered for under various existing Government programmes. Generally, social housing is defined as local authority homes and homes provided by housing associations. The upkeep of Local Authority homes is managed by the Local Authorities. In relation to the housing association homes, of which there are about twenty five thousand, grants are available for the implementation of energy efficiency improvement measures in such homes thorough the Better Energy Homes programme managed by the SEAI.