Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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179. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the extent to which the total number of persons on the various local authority housing lists has fluctuated in the course of the past 12 years; the steps taken annually to address the issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16096/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The report on the 2011 Housing Needs Assessment, available on my Department’s website at: , contains details on waiting list numbers for each local authority which were recorded on social housing needs assessments carried out at 3 year intervals from 1993 to 2011 under Section 9 of the Housing Act 1988.

The latest social housing needs assessment was carried out as at 7 May 2013 in accordance with section 20 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 and the results are available on my Department’s website at:.

The 2013 figures are the most up-to-date figures available on waiting list numbers, and are dynamic and subject to on-going fluctuation as households are allocated housing and new households applying for housing support.  Due to improvements in the way data are collected, the 2013 results cannot be directly compared to previous results as this latest summary employed updated methodologies and was the first to be carried out under the 2011 Social Housing Assessment Regulations.

The Social Housing Strategy 2020 includes a commitment to increase the regularity of the Housing Needs Assessment by undertaking it on annual basis, from 2016 onwards.

Government housing policy has adapted and changed over the last decade to ensure that delivery and allocation of social housing is done in a fair and efficient way within budgetary constraints. The Social Housing Strategy targets the delivery of over 110,000 social housing units through a variety of housing mechanisms. The Strategy will address the needs of the 90,000 households on the housing waiting list in full, with flexibility to meet potential future demand.