Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 24: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government the steps he will take to address the housing shortage as evidenced by the 100,000 families currently on local authority waiting lists, in many cases for several years, and who currently cannot provide themselves with a home due to economic circumstances, cannot access local authority housing due to lack of provision over several years, who find themselves in a position of having to rent at prices they cannot afford if they are employed and having to seek rental support if unemployed thereby creating further problems for themselves and the Exchequer but through no fault of theirs; if he will set out specific targets and priorities to address this issue in early date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13097/12]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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In terms of the delivery of social housing, the Government's housing policy statement, published in June 2011, clearly identifies that the priority for Government will be to meet the most acute needs of households applying for social housing support. The financial parameters within which we will have to operate in the coming years rule out a return to very large capital funded construction programmes by local authorities. Nevertheless, the Government is committed to responding more quickly and on a larger scale to social housing support needs through a variety of mechanisms, including through increased provision of social housing.

Delivery of social housing will be significantly facilitated through more flexible funding models, such as the Rental Accommodation Scheme and leasing, but 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 for construction and acquisition. There is also obvious potential, across a range of housing programmes, for the Government's objective of sourcing and providing suitable residential units for use as social housing to be aligned with the commercial objectives of the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA).