Written answers

Wednesday, 20 April 2016

Department of Environment, Community and Local Government

Housing Provision

Photo of Barry CowenBarry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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470. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the spending allocated to each local authority for the refurbishment or regeneration of vacant social housing in each of the years from 2014 to 2015 and to date in 2016. [7638/16]

Photo of Alan KellyAlan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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The funding provided by my Department to local authorities in 2014 and 2015 to support their work in dealing with vacant social housing units is set out in the following table. This funding is in addition to the work and resources that local authorities deploy themselves to deal with this issue, which arises because the repair and re-letting of vacant social houses has always been part of the ongoing work that local authorities carry out on their social housing stock as part of their responsibilities as housing authorities under Section 58 of the Housing Act 1966. Funding is being provided by my Department as a continuation of the support for local authorities for this activity into 2016. However, full year allocations are awaiting the finalisation of lists of units by authorities. Once finalised, the funding position will be kept under review as the year progresses.

-20142015
Local Authority Units returned Funding Units Returned Funding

1 Carlow 42 €325,111 28 €300,650
2 Cavan 23 €349,137 28 €307,018
3 Clare 65 €995,829 96 €1,472,533
4 Cork City 212 €2,872,027 281 €4,522,819
5 Cork County 155 €1,539,364 199 €2,091,578
6 Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown 5 €89,896 24 €262,768
7 Donegal 167 €919,797 146 €1,003,576
8 Dublin City 467 €6,163,464 787 €10,858,088
9 Fingal 165 €1,938,780 139 €1,624,632
10 Galway City 24 €474,050 25 €222,025
11 Galway County 76 €958,263 59 €705,347
12 Kerry 79 €718,938 103 €884,736
13 Kildare 49 €503,463 20 €359,808
14 Kilkenny 25 €484,430 23 €381,639
15 Laois 43 €257,013 12 €61,228
16 Leitrim 15 €229,072 9 €177,474
17 Limerick 98 €915,969 52 €500,689
18 Longford 16 €313,250 22 €426,535
19 Louth 18 €113,620 21 €292,279
20 Mayo 80 €464,508 86* €878,600
21 Meath 59 €1,037,501 54 €855,565
22 Monaghan 21 €92,751 13 €100,502
23 Offaly 35 €514,000 55 €551,532
24 Roscommon 34 €224,028 36 €258,773
25 Sligo 29 €311,648 39 €439,924
26 South Dublin 92 €627,408 27 €216,838
27 Tipperary 86 €935,801 115 €1,299,180
28 Waterford 42 €605,428 56 €488,724
29 Westmeath 56 €396,518 74 €650,813
30 Wexford 20 €316,307 24 €294,811
31 Wicklow 35 €650,204 43 €857,499
TOTAL 2333 €26,337,575 2696 €33,348,183

Photo of Barry CowenBarry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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471. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the reason there is a cap of €30,000 for local authority applications for funding for refurbishment of vacant social housing programmes to his Department. [7639/16]

Photo of Alan KellyAlan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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The repair and re-letting of vacant social houses has always been part of the ongoing work that local authorities carry out on their social housing stock as part of their responsibilities as housing authorities under Section 58 of the Housing Act 1966. However, in 2014, in recognition of the need to address a build-up of vacant social houses, my Department introduced the current programme to support local authorities to return vacant social houses to productive use, with exchequer funding provided since then for some 5,000 such housing units at a cost of almost €60 million. This funding is provided to compliment the efforts that local authorities make from within their own resources.

The funding provided by my Department under the current exchequer-funded programme for the return of vacant social houses to productive use is up to €30,000 per unit, which is a strong level of funding support for the repair of a social housing unit. In fact, the average amount claimed under this programme is €12,000 per unit.

Alongside this programme, my Department has also recently implemented a new exchequer funding programme to support local authorities in remediating more seriously derelict social houses. Allocations to local authorities in respect of their proposals under this programme will be made shortly and it is expected that the average cost of remediation per unit will be in the region of €50,000.

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