Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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371. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will provide an update regarding the announcement made on 19 July 2012 that his Department would be allocating €100 million for social housing which would result in the provision of 800 new units across the country; the number of units that have been completed in each local authority area; and his views on the way this will impact on the 500 new units that were announced in budget 2014. [44674/13]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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With a view to making optimum use of the capital funding available under the housing programme over the 2012-14 period, I announced funding of €100 million in July 2012 for a 3-year housing construction and acquisition programme to deliver some 800 new units of social housing by end 2014. This included a construction programme which is currently underway for 185 local authority houses and 111 houses for special needs accommodation for the voluntary sector. The 3-year construction programme is on-going at present and is expected be completed by end 2014. The funding also provided for the acquisition of built properties with some 246 units to be delivered through the local authorities and a further 266 units to be acquired by Approved Housing Bodies (AHB's) and funded under the Capital Assistance Scheme (CAS).

Earlier in 2012 I announced separate capital allocations to city and county councils which included some €59 million for the local authority housing construction and acquisitions programme and a further € 4 6 million for the provision of accommodation by AHB's. It is not possible to disaggregate the numbers of housing units delivered under each of the two allocations announced in 2012. Data in relation to the overall numbers of local authority housing units delivered, including completion figures for local authorities and the voluntary and co-operative housing programmes funded by my Department, are available on my Department's website, It is expected that the recently announced €30 million additional investment in social housing will deliver 500 homes for families on the housing waiting list.