Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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873. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his plans to secure additional funding to purchase social housing units in order to stem the homelessness crisis in County Kildare; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28976/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The Social Housing Strategy targets the delivery of over 35,000 new social housing units over the period to 2020. Building on this, I issued ambitious targets to all local authorities out to 2017, the delivery of which will have a strong impact for those homeless and on the housing waiting lists. The target for County Kildare is 1,283 social housing units; this includes 433 units for delivery under capital programmes, with a provisional funding allocation of €80m to support this. With funding and targets in place out to 2017, it is a matter for Kildare County Council to identify its area’s social housing need and to respond as required, including planning and undertaking new social housing developments and acquiring suitable built properties to meet this need. The provisional funding allocation of €80m will support the development of new social housing units and also the purchase of units that may be privately owned. A similar approach applies to funding sanctioned by local authorities to approved housing bodies, which can be for either new build or the acquisition of existing housing units.

In relation to building proposals for new social housing, I announced a major social housing construction programme on 5May covering all 31 local authorities, with €312m investment and over 1,700 housing units to be built across some 100 separate projects. For Kildare County Council, this included approval for the construction of 29 units at Bishopsland, 18 units at Rathangan and 10 units at Prosperous. Details are available on my Department’s website at .

This was the first such announcement under the Social Housing Strategy and further announcements will be made as local authority proposals for the delivery of social housing units are evaluated.

My Department has also funded acquisitions to support new social housing for Kildare County Council within the targets and provisional funding allocation notified to them. It is likely that further acquisition opportunities will be identified by the Council as part of delivering on the above targets.