Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)
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10. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his Department's work in addressing the ongoing social housing crisis; and if a more advanced level of a social housing building programme will be on his Department's agenda to address the crisis. [51810/13]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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The Government’s housing policy statement, published in June 2011, clearly identifies that the priority for Government is to meet the most acute needs of households applying for social housing support. Together with the Minister for Housing and Planning, I am determined to ensure that the social housing programme is optimise d in terms of resources and focus to maximise the response to social housing need. This must of course be achieved in a context in which public expenditure necessarily continues to be constrained. Nonetheless, in July 2012 the nister for Housing and Planning announced details of a three-year funding programme of €100 million to deliver some 800 new units of voluntary and local authority owned social housing.

In addition to the €525.8m in housing programme expenditure provided for in my Department’s Abridged Estimate for 2014, Budget 2014 provides a further €50 million to fund infrastructural investment primarily in the housing area, including €30 million for the State house building programme; €10 million for an unfinished housing estate resolution project; and an additional €10 million for housing adaptation grants. When this is taken into account, funding for housing for next year is effectively maintained at 2013 levels.

Delivery of social housing continues to 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 include options to purchase, build to lease and the sourcing of loan finance by approved housing bodies for construction and acquisition. In addition, my Department and the Housing Agency are engaged with NAMA to ensure continued delivery of housing units for social purposes. Approved Housing Bodies will also play a key role in 2014 in the delivery of social housing and in particular in its capacity to attract external financial investment.

In spite of our challenging economic circumstances, I expect the final output across all social housing programmes for 2013 to be in the region of 5,000 new housing units, and it is provisionally estimated that in the region of 5,000 units will also be provided for social housing in 2014.