Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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24. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the level of engagement with local authorities regarding the expenditure of funding from his Department for housing initiatives over the past two years. [38327/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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My Department meets on an ongoing basis with all local authorities at a range of levels, both individually and collectively, to advance social housing issues. Such engagements cover, inter alia, progress on social housing projects and the drawdown of funding, and they have been a feature of the work in this area for many years.

Since the launch of the Social Housing Strategylast year, there is now regular and structured interaction between senior management from local authorities and my Department on its implementation. In addition to this, I met with local authority Chief Executives and Directors of Housing on 14 July and again on 30 September, to discuss progress on delivery under the Strategy and the associated resource requirements to meet the annual delivery targets.

The meetings were very productive and there was clear recognition of the additional financial resources that the Government has made available and the additional local authority housing posts that have been sanctioned by my Department. I am confident that the local authorities are committed to implementation of the Strategy, utilising all available channels of delivery, and that the work in this regard is well underway in every local authority around the country.

Minister Coffey and I remain committed to working collaboratively with local authorities throughout the country and will continue to be vigilant and responsive to the challenges of delivering the ambitious targets set under the Strategy.