Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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TheSocial Housing Strategy 2020 includes a commitment tocommence work on a financial vehicle or other ways to raise funds for the social housing sector.

Work on the development of this new funding model is being progressed under the oversight of a group which has been put in place to develop the financial aspects of the Social Housing Strategy. This group - the Finance Work Stream - comprises a range of key stakeholders including my Department, the Housing Finance Agency, the National Development Finance Agency and the Departments of Finance and of Public Expenditure and Reform.

The objective of this work is to try to deliver an investment mechanism for social housing that does not negatively impact on the General Government Balance.

Arising from the opportunity offered by the Strategy, a range of developers, investors, financiers and others expressed interest in being involved in the provision of or investment in social housing. A protocol was put in place in March 2015 under the auspices of the Finance Work Stream to facilitate individuals and entities seeking to engage with the State to provide investment for the delivery of social housing.

During the course of its work, the Clearing House Group received 25 proposals for funding social and affordable housing, using both existing mechanisms and new approaches. The Group reported in November 2015, and arising from its work a number of measures are being developed with a view to better facilitating private investment into social housing.These include:

- amendments to existing arrangements under the Social Housing Current Expenditure Programmeto facilitate investment by institutional investors; and

- an affordable rental scheme.

The Social Housing Current Expenditure Programme currently provides a means whereby properties can be built or bought by Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) with the use of private funding and leased through AHB’s and Local Authorities, for the provision of social housing. This scheme is underpinned by a lease and other legal agreements which provide that rental payments are made by the State over an agreed long-term time period, typically 20 years, in return for which the housing unit is made available for social housing. Changes are now being proposed to this scheme to provide revised arrangements which serve to expand these mechanisms to facilitate larger institutional private investors to come into the social housing market.

On 2 February 2016, Government approved the over-arching principles which will underpin these revised arrangements and the arrangements being developed to give effect to an affordable rental scheme.

The Affordable Rental pilot scheme was announced as part of Budget 2016 which will utilise some of the €400m being made available from the proceeds of the sale of Bord Gáis Éireann . The scheme is currently being developed in my Department. €10m has been made available for the scheme in 2016. This is to be an on-going annual commitment to secure a long term increase in the supply of housing for affordable rental.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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The Social Housing Strategy 2020, launched in November 2014, provides for an investment with a capital value of €300 million in social housing through the public private partnership model. In total the programme is expected to deliver 1,500 social housing units. PPP units take a minimum of 3 years to be delivered. To enable delivery to commence as quickly as possible, the PPP programme is being rolled-out in three bundles.

The first bundle of PPP sites which is to provide over 500 units in the greater Dublin area was announced in October 2015. The social housing is being developed at these six sites in co-operation with the local authorities in each area. Two of the sites are located in Dublin City with one each in South Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow and Louth.

Dublin City Council has been appointed to act as the lead local authority for the delivery of the social housing PPP Programme in respect of this first bundle. The delivery and governance arrangements for this bundle have now been put in place and the Project Board held its first meeting on 29 April 2016. The Project Board is chaired by the Chief Executive of the City Council and includes representatives of my Department, the National Development Finance Agency and each of the Local Authorities concerned (in this case, Dublin City Council, South Dublin County Council, Louth County Council, Wicklow County Council and Kildare County Council).

Site selection for the second bundle is close to finalisation with a third bundle to be finalised by end of 2016. The identification of sites is being overseen by a sub-group of the Finance Work Stream - a structure which operates as part of the implementation arrangement for the Social Housing Strategy 2020. This sub-group includes representatives of my Department, the Department of Finance, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the National Development Finance Agency and the Housing Agency.

The units to be delivered under the programme will use what is termed an ‘availability-based’ PPP model, in which a private sector company designs, builds, finances and maintains the social housing units in return for a ‘unitary payment’. The ‘availability based’ model being applied has been used successfully in Ireland for over 15 years to deliver roads, schools and courthouses.  It involves the procurement of a consortium to design, build, finance and maintain, for 25 years, social housing units on sites provided by the State. The housing units are then handed over to the State after 25 years in a predefined, good quality condition. No expenditure has been incurred to date in respect of the PPP project.

The relevant local authorities will retain responsibility for tenant management during the contract period. Tenants allocated to PPP units are drawn, in the normal manner, from the local authority social housing waiting list in accordance with that local authority’s allocation scheme.  The tenants are subject to standard arrangements as apply to other social housing allocations, including in respect of the charging of differential rent.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 122 and 123 together.

The Social Housing Strategy 2020, published in November 2014, targets the provision of over 110,000 social housing units, through the delivery of 35,000 new social housing units and meeting the housing needs of some 75,000 households mainly through the Housing Assistance Payment. The Strategy is available on my Department’s website at the following link:

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The Strategy contains a robust governance and implementation framework and provides for a strong focus on on-going monitoring and review which will drive delivery, reform and policy development during its lifetime. The Governance structureis set out in Chapter 7.

In that regard, I, along with my colleague Minister of State Paudie Coffey, have co-chaired the high-level Oversight Group, which is made up of key stakeholders, to drive the Strategy’s overall implementation. There have been nine meetings of the Oversight Group since the publication of the Social Housing Strategy 2020in November 2014.

Membership of the Oversight Group is set out in the following table:

Minister Alan Kelly T.D.	Co-Chair	Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government
Minister of State Paudie Coffey	Co-Chair	Minister of State at the Department of the Environment with Special Responsibility for Housing, Planning and Coordination of the Construction 2020 Strategy
Mr. John McCarthy	Secretary General	Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government
Ms Bairbre Nic Aongusa	Assistant Secretary/Chair of the Social Housing Strategy Project Board	Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government
Ms Helen Faughnan	Assistant Secretary	Department of Social Protection
Ms Patricia Coleman	Assistant Secretary	Department of Public Expenditure & Reform
Mr. John McCarthy	Chief Economist	Department of Finance
Mr. Padraig Ó Conaill	Principal Officer	Department of Social Protection
Mr. Danie l McLoughlin	Chief Executive/Chair of the Dublin Social Housing Delivery Taskforce	South Dublin County Council
Mr. Pat Gallagher	Chief Executive/Chair of County & City Management Association	Westmeath County Council
Mr. Eugene Cummins	Chief Executive/Chair of County & City Management Association, Housing Committee	Roscommon County Council
Dr. Donal McManus	Chief Executive Officer	Irish Council for Social Housing
Mr. Kieron Brennan	Chief Executive Officer	Co-operative Housing Ireland
Dr. Rory O'Donnell	Director	National Economic & Social Council

Given the scale of the challenge in the Dublin area, a key early action of the Strategy was the establishment of a Dublin Social Housing Delivery Taskforce (DSHDT), to oversee and drive the Strategy’s implementation across the four Dublin local authorities.

Full details regarding the Taskforce’s role and its terms of reference are set out at paragraph 4.3 of the Strategy. There have been fourteen meetings of the Taskforce since the publication of the Social Housing Strategy 2020in November 2014.

Membership of the Taskforce is set out in the following table:

Mr. Daniel McLoughlin (Chair)	Chief Executive	South Dublin County Council
Mr. Owen Keegan	Chief Executive	Dublin City Council
Mr. Paul Reid	Chief Executive	Fingal County Council
Ms Philomena Poole	Chief Executive	Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council
Ms Bairbre Nic Aongusa	Assistant Secretary/Chair of the Social Housing Strategy Project Board	Department of the Environment, Community & Local Government
Mr. John O'Connor	Chief Executive	Housing Agency
Mr. Geoff Corcoran	Director of Development	Co-operative Housing Ireland
Mr. Donal McManu s	Chief Executive Officer	I rish C ouncil for S ocial H ousing

Minutes of the meetings of the Social Housing Strategy Oversight Group, the Dublin Social Housing Delivery Taskforce and the Social Housing Strategy Project Board are available on my Department’s website at the following link:.