Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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559. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government when an allocation for funding to local authorities for social housing will be approved; the overall estimate for this figure for 2015; when councils will be provided approval to commence purchasing these houses; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4402/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The Social Housing Strategy 2020targets the provision of over 35,000 new social housing units over the lifetime of the Strategy. I expect that 7 ,400 of these will be delivered in 2015 through the following methods : 3,000 through leasing, 2,000 through the Rental Accommodation Scheme, returning 1,000 vacant properties back to productive use , and 1,400 units through direct build or acquisition by local authorities and approved housing bodies. The actions contained in the Strategy include the agreement by Q1 2015 of targets with local authorities for the delivery of social housing units in 2015. Consultation with individual local authorities in this regard is currently taking place and the allocation of funding to the authorities is based on the targets that are set and the plans of individual authorities to deliver on those targets. The 2015 allocation of funding to the Local Authority Construction and Acquisition Programme, through which the local authorities build and acquire additional social housing units , is €149.185 million, with a further €22.64m being provided by certain local authorities themselves.