Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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141. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government further to Parliamentary Question No. 160 of 13 March 2014, the reasons the local government management agency's review of local authority service indicators has been completed to 2011 only; when he expects to have the data for 2012 and 2013; the reasons for the delay in compiling the data; if he is satisfied he has access to sufficient data in order to ascertain the current level of vacant social housing units and formulate appropriate policy regarding same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14611/14]

Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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142. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government further to Parliamentary Question No. 160 of 13 March 2014, if he will provide a breakdown per local authority of the funding allocated by his Department over the past five years specifically for the upgrade of vacant local authority housing stock to prepare same for re-letting; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14612/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 141 and 142 together.

Data relating to the local authority housing stock, including information on vacancy rates and the time taken to re-let properties, are compiled by the Local Government Management Agency as part of the annual local authority service indicators. Electronic copies of the reports, including the most recent report for 2012, which was published on 25 March 2014, are available on the Local Government Management Agency’s website

Compilation of the 2013 data is in progress and will be published by the LGMA in due course. To assist in the management of my Department’s social housing retrofitting measure for 2014 local authorities have been requested to provide details of the level of vacant stock at end 2013.

Under my Department’s Social Housing Investment Programme, funding is provided to local authorities for a wide range of measures aimed at improving the social housing stock, including es tate-wide remedial works , the regeneration of run-down social housing estates and flat complexes, the energy retrofitting of older houses and ap artments and adaptations and extensions to meet the needs of tenants with a disability. Over the course of 2011 and 2012 my Department’s energy retrofitting programme focussed exclusively on the refurbishment of vacant properties with the objective of returning as many of th ese to productive use in as short a time as possible. Over that period, some €52 .5 million was recouped to local authorities and some 4,774 properties were improved. While the recoupments made under the other improvement measures over the past five years would also have included some level of funding in respect of works to vacant properties it is not possible to disaggregate the data in this regard. Details of the amounts of funding recouped to individual authorities in respect of the retrofitting measures for vacant properties in 2011 and 2012 are set out in the following table:

Recoupment to Local Authorities for Retrofitting in 2011/2012