Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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13. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the number of residential units made available to local authorities in 2015, the number of these made available to citizens and families in emergency accommodation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44045/15]

Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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The Social Housing Strategy 2020 sets out clear, measureable actions and targets to increase the supply of social housing, reform delivery arrangements and meet the housing needs of all households on the social housing list. The Strategy targets the delivery of 35,000 new units, to be delivered by local authorities and approved housing bodies, and 75,000 units in the private rental market to be delivered mainly under the Housing Assistance Payment scheme. The Strategy has been supported by two successive budgets with €1.7 billion allocated to housing to support the provision of over 33,000 units across both Capital and Current programmes. Given the pressing need to recommence a house building programme around €3 billion in capital funding will be provided in support of the Social Housing Strategy through the Government’s Capital Plan - Building on Recovery: Infrastructure and Capital Investment 2016-2021 .  

The commitment of on-going financial support has allowed me to allocate half a billion euro to local authorities and approved housing bodies for 2,900 new social housing units to be delivered between now and 2017.

In terms of output in 2015 the target set is 15,900 across the current and capital programmes. All efforts are being made, working with delivery partners in local authorities, approved housing bodies and NAMA , to deliver maximum output under each delivery mechanism and this will continue right up to the year-end. The latest data , some of which relate to the position at end Quarter 3, indicate that over 1 0,0 00 units have been delivered across all the programmes so far in 2015. With the most significant share of delivery traditionally coming through in the last quarter of the year , I expect further significant progress to be reflected in the end-year position.

Under the Ministerial Direction issued by Minister Kelly, which applies until 31 January 2016, key local authorities are required to prioritise homeless and other vulnerable households in the allocation of tenancies under their control. The four Dublin local authorities have been directed to allocate 50% of all available dwellings to such households, while the local authorities in counties Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford have been directed to allocate 30%.

In terms of households exiting homelessness, the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive figures show that 739 households exited homelessness and entered into tenancy arrangements in the first 9 months of 2015 in the Dublin region.