Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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139. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the amounts allocated to Louth and Meath County Councils for local authority housing repairs, retrofitting and returning vacant units to use in the years 2010 to 2015 and to date in 2016, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7941/16]

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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140. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the amount of funding drawn down by Louth and Meath County Councils for local authority housing repairs, retrofitting and returning vacant units to use in the years 2010 to 2015 and to date in 2016, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7942/16]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 139 and 140 together.

The management and maintenance of local authority housing stock, including the carrying out of pre-letting repairs and returning vacant units to productive use, is a matter for each local authority, is carried out under their ongoing maintenance programmes and is not ordinarily directly funded by my Department.

My Department does provide funding via a number of specific programmes to support local authorities in improving the quality of their social housing stock and in relation to vacant social units, the need to address a build-up of such units was recognised by way of a targeted programme of funding support introduced in 2014; prior to this, some funding towards the remediation of vacant units was available under the Department’s Energy Efficiency Programme up to 2012.

The funding in relation to vacant units is provided to compliment the efforts that local authorities make from within their own resources and has seen some 5,000 such housing units remediated at a cost of almost €60 million in 201 4 and 2015 . Other programmes that have supported local authorities in repairing and retrofitting their social housing stock in the years concerned have included the Remedial Works Programme and the Energy Efficiency/Retrofitting Programme, which commenced in 2013.

Allocations and funding received by Louth and Meath County Councils for the years 2010 to 2015 in respect of returning vacant units to use, the Remedial Works Programme and the Energy Efficiency/Retrofitting Programme, are set out in the following tables.

Louth County Council

Meath County Council