Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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238. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his plans to tackle the housing crisis in Dublin; the new funding that is being provided to tackle social housing lists; the number of homes he expects to be built in 2015; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8708/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The Social Housing Strategy 2020 builds on the provisions contained in Budget 2015 and sets out clear, measurable actions and targets to increase the supply of social housing, reform delivery arrangements and meet the housing needs of all households on the housing list. The Strategy targets the delivery of 35,000 new social housing units over the period to 2020. The cost to the exchequer of building, acquiring, or leasing these 35,000 units is estimated over the period to 2020 to be € 3.8 billion. Significant Exchequer funding is being allocated to ensure that the early phases of the Strategy will be delivered.

The total targeted provision of over 110,000 social housing units , through the delivery of 35,000 new social housing units and meeting the housing needs of some 75,000 households through the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) and Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS), will address the needs of the 90,000 households on the housing waiting list in full, with flexibility to meet potential future demand.

Under the Governance arrangements outlined in the Strategy the Dublin Social Housing Delivery Task Force has been established to oversee and drive implementation across Dublin local authorities. All Dublin local authority chief executives are members of the Task Force, which reports directly to the Oversight Group that I chair.

Target-setting on an individual local authority by local authority basis is well underway, and will be concluded by the end of Quarter 1 2015, in accordance with the timeline set out in the Strategy. In this regard, letters have issued to each local authority, from my Department, seeking delivery proposals, across all delivery mechanisms, for the years 2015 to 2017 and returns are currently being received and collated.

With regard to overall national delivery targets for 2015, I expect that some 7, 400 new social housing units will be provided, broken down as follows:

- 1,400 units to be built or acquired by local authorities and approved housing bodies;

- 3,000 units under the Social Housing Leasing Initiative;

- 1,000 vacant local authority units will be returned to use; and

- 2,000 new Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) units.

In addition, a further 8,400 households will be assisted through the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP). Total housing provision for 2015 will result in an investment of almost €800 million across a range of housing programmes.

The precise details of the delivery will be agreed on a local authority by local authority basis, including in relation to the Dublin local authorities, in the coming weeks.