Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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11. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will provide an update on what has been done to date to address the housing shortage in Dublin; if he will provide an update on what will be done going forward to address the crisis within housing and the shortage of housing stocks; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22319/15]

Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, the Government published Construction 2020: A Strategy for a Renewed Construction Sectorin May 2014 aimed at addressing issues in the property and construction sectors and ensuring that any critical bottlenecks that might impede the sector in meeting residential and non-residential demand are addressed.

The Dublin Housing Supply Co-ordination Task Force, established under the Strategy, has reported that there are currently sufficient planning permissions, with no insurmountable infrastructural deficits, to deliver circa 21,000 housing units across the four Dublin local authority areas, while a further 25,000 new homes are considered permissible on existing lands zoned for residential use if landowners and developers wished to seek those permissions.

We are already beginning to see some welcome and positive signs of recovery in the sector. Particularly notable in this regard is the increase in the number of house completions in 2014 to 11,016 units nationally – an increase of 33% on the 2013 figure. The greater Dublin area accounted for the bulk of that growth, with 4,427 units completed. In Quarter 1 2015, a total of 652 units were completed in the four Dublin local authority areas, an increase of 28% on the same period in 2014.

A range of measures are being taken to support increased housing delivery. In particular, the Urban Regeneration and Housing Bill 2015 which was published last week, provides for changes in development contributions and in relation to Part V. In addition, the Bill provides for the introduction of a vacant site levy.

With regard to social housing provision, the Social Housing Strategysets out ambitious targets for delivery to 2020, with delivery in the Dublin area being driven by a dedicated Dublin Social Housing Delivery Taskforce. On 1 April, Minister Kelly and I announced provisional funding allocations totalling €1.5 billion for all local authorities, to meet an ambitious delivery target of 22,883 social housing units out to 2017. Within this, the combined funding total for the Dublin local authorities comes to over €500 million. As part of the delivery under this €500m programme for Dublin, €117m was allocated to the four Dublin local authorities on 5 May in respect of 19 build projects, which will see the development of 566 new units of accommodation. I expect further approvals to be announced in the coming months.

In addition, nearly €6m has been allocated to the 4 Dublin local authorities to bring 345 properties back into use this year and over €15m has been provided for Dublin across a range of other housing schemes, including works to improve housing for people with disabilities, as well as retrofitting homes to improve energy efficiency.