Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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467. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the funding he has provided to local authorities to assist in the routine turnaround of vacant social housing properties when they are being transferred between tenancies, by local authority, in each of the years 2013 to 2015, inclusive; and the average length of time it takes for a local authority to turnaround a social authority home that has been vacated before it can be inhabited by a new tenant. [2881/16]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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My Department does not provide funding to local authorities in respect of the routine turnaround of social housing stock; this would be a matter for each local authority as part of their normal responsibilities for maintaining their social housing properties. In 2014 my Department introduced a new, target-driven programme to support local authorities to return vacant properties to productive use where the costs exceed the cost of the normal end of lease maintenance and where energy efficiency upgrades to the property can be implemented. Funding is conditional on a commitment that the accommodation will be occupied immediately following the works, with priority given to homeless families to the fullest extent possible.

Over 5,000 social housing units have been returned to productive use through the support of this programme in 2014 and 2015; details are set out in the following table.

The average length of time taken by local authorities to return vacant social housing units to use is recorded as part of reports on Service Indicators in Local Authoritiesprepared by the Local Government Management Agency, which can be accessed at the following link: