Written answers

Tuesday, 29 September 2015

Department of Environment, Community and Local Government

Homelessness Strategy

Photo of Aengus Ó SnodaighAengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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590. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he has considered contacting EUROSTAT, in order to declare Dublin's homeless crisis an emergency; the steps required to declare the homeless crisis an emergency; if this declaration would speed up the public procurement process when building social housing; if this declaration would allow the Government to fund the building of social housing off-balance sheet. [33353/15]

Photo of Alan KellyAlan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The Dublin local authorities are exploring the potential for modular housing as an option for addressing emergency accommodation needs and I have asked Dublin City Council, as the lead authority for homelessness in the region, to develop the proposal further and my Department is liaising with the City Council in this regard. The issue of procurement is included in these considerations and, under the relevant EU Directive, compliance with procurement requirements is a matter for the contracting authority. Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union and, as such, their rules are not directly relevant to issues in relation to EU procurement law.

In Budget 2015, the Government announced that it would allocate €400 million of the proceeds from the sale of Bord Gáis Energy to set up an off-balance sheet financial vehicle, to be known as the Strategic Housing Fund. The intention of the Fund was to leverage additional private finance and, together, provide financing to Approved Housing Bodies to deliver at least another 2,000 housing units over the period 2016 to 2018. Work on the development of this new funding model is being progressed under the Finance Workstream which has been put in place in my Department as part of the governance and implementation arrangements for the Social Housing Strategy 2020. The group is actively exploring potential opportunities which may be capable of enabling this €400m, either alone or in conjunction with additional private funding, to be used to facilitate the delivery of additional social and/or affordable housing through the private and/or voluntary housing sectors.

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