Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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548. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the amount of funding that has been released by his Department, for bringing vacant properties back into productive use. [17632/15]

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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549. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the number of voids in Dublin City, out of the total 1,046, that have been brought back into productive use since December 2014. [17633/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 548 and 549 together.

The allocation of funding to local authorities of some €20m from my Department in respect of the 2015 programme to bring vacant units back to productive use will be made shortly. This allocation will also set out the number of targeted units per local authority. For 2015, a target of 1,000 vacant units to be returned to productive use has been set as part of the Social Housing Strategy 2020. The Strategy also outlines that for the future, funding for work by local authorities to return vacant social housing units to productive will be linked to local authorities putting in place ongoing maintenance programmes to address the issue of vacant properties.

While funding from my Department will support local authorities in dealing with an amount of vacant units, it is the case for all local authorities that social housing units become vacant on an ongoing basis and many are returned to productive use as part of the normal management of stock by the authorities.