Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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768. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will address a matter (details supplied) regarding the housing crisis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14008/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Social housing is a key priority for Government, as evidenced by the additional €2.2 billion in funding announced in Budget 2015 and the publication of the Social Housing Strategy 2020in November, 2014. The targeted social housing 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 and Rental Accommodation Scheme, will address the needs of the 90,000 households on the housing waiting list in full, with flexibility to meet potential future demand. The Strategy will be delivered in two phases. Phase 1 targets the delivery of 18,000 additional housing units and 32,400 Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) and Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) units, by the end of 2017. In phase 2, spanning the years 2018 to 2020, the strategy targets the delivery of 17,000 additional units and 43,000 Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) and Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) units. In addition, the implementation of the range of actions under Construction 2020 will support increased supply in the wider housing market.

The Social Housing Strategy 2020is available on my Department’s website at the following link: .

The latest summary of social housing assessments, as of 7 May 2013, provides data on the number of households on local authority waiting lists at that date across a range of categories broken down by local authority. The Social Housing Strategy 2020also includes a commitment to increase the regularity of the summary of social housing assessments by undertaking it on annual basis from 2016 onwards.

Details on the number of households on the waiting lists as per the 2013 assessment in the four Dublin authorities are outlined in the table below:

On 1 April 2015, I announced housing targets for each local authority area to 2017, with associated funding of some €1.5 billion. On a national basis this significant announcement is designed to accommodate 25% of the social housing waiting list. The combined funding total for the Dublin local authorities comes to over €500 million for the period 2015 to 2017. This funding underpins ambitious housing targets that have been set for the Dublin local authorities in that period to ensure strong delivery where the need is greatest. Details of targets and provisional funding allocations for the Dublin local authorities are set out in the table below.

The full announcement is available on my Department’s website at the following link.

With regard to land available for housing purposes, my Department has recently carried out a national survey of all lands zoned for residential or primarily residential development in statutory local authority development plans and local area plans across Ireland in to determine the location and quantity of lands that may be regarded as being undeveloped and available for primarily residential development purposes. Details of the survey can be found at:

Furthermore, the Housing Agency, in consultation with my Department and local authorities, is updating the data and developing a more extensive and detailed database and GIS map of local authority owned sites in order to support the implementation of the Social Housing Strategy 2020. The database will include all local authority owned lands and Land Aggregation Scheme lands showing their location, size, boundaries and other information. This map will be up-dated over the course of the Strategy to record the development and use of lands.

As part of that exercise local authorities are in the process of returning land data and assessment results and a full analysis of this data has now commenced. All suitable sites owned by Local Authorities will be considered in the context of future social housing building programmes.

Tackling impediments to the proper functioning of the construction sector is another important priority for this Government, and already a number of targeted initiatives have been introduced by the Government under Construction 2020that have supported the recovery of the construction sector. In March 2015, both my Department and the Department of Finance held conferences, bringing together key delivery agents including, investors, developers, approved housing bodies, local authorities, Government departments and public bodies , to explore how viable construction and development projects can be progressed.

A structured, formal process of engagement with proposers of social housing in the investment and delivery area has been put in place under a Clearing House Protocol. This Protocol sets out the process for future engagement with such proposers and is available on my Department’s website at:

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In addition, a wide range of initiatives are being progressed under the Government’s Construction 2020strategy. A number of these are being advanced in the context of the Planning and Development (No.1) Bill which I expect will be published early in the current Oireachtas session. One of the measures involved will see the introduction of a vacant site levy whereby local authorities, in certain urban centres, will have the power to apply levies on sites which are left vacant and under utilised.