Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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11. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government when local authorities will receive details of housing grant allocations for 2015; the number of houses he expects to be built by councils; if he will provide a list of the breakdown by local authority; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9078/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Social housing is a key priority for Government, as evidenced by the increased provision made for the area in Budget 2015. The Social Housing Strategy 2020: Support, Supply and Reformtargets the delivery of 35,000 new social housing units over the period to 2020. Significant Exchequer funding is being allocated to ensure that the early phases of the Strategy will be delivered.

Actions 1 and 4 of the Strategy require the agreement of national targets for delivery of social housing across local authorities in 2015 and in subsequent years. 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. Delivery proposals for the years 2015 to 2017 have been sought and obtained from all local authorities and their proposals are being assessed in my Department.

For 2015, within the overall 7,400 units to be delivered, I expect some 1,400 new social housing units to be built or acquired by local authorities and approved housing bodies and a further 1,000 vacant local authority houses to be returned to use. Each local authority has responsibility for identifying their area’s social housing need and responding as required, including planning and undertaking new social housing developments to meet this need. The precise details of the 2015 delivery will be agreed on a local authority by local authority basis in the coming weeks, with funding allocations provided in respect of the approved proposals.