Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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124. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government for a progress report on the cost rental pilot project, as committed to in the Social Housing Strategy 2020. [9235/16]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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An important part of the Social Housing Strategy 2020is its focus on the rented sector and its potential as a stable and secure source, of high-quality housing support for low and middle income households which is affordable to both tenants and the State. This work forms one of the key blocks of Pillar 2 of the Strategy, exploring ways of enhancing the capacity of the rental sector to contribute to the provision of affordable housing support in a sustainable manner, supporting the continued growth in the rental sector, avoiding an over reliance on any one particular tenure and reflecting wider labour market patterns and the need for an increasingly mobile work-force. The particular focus of this work is on the potential of cost/affordable rental models to provide secure, affordable accommodation in the rented sector.

In that context, an Affordable Rental pilot scheme was announced in October 2015, as part of Budget 2016. The scheme is currently being developed in my Department. €10m has been made available for the scheme in 2016, the first step in what is to be an on-going annual commitment to secure a long term increase in the supply of housing for affordable rental. On 2 February 2016, Government approved the over-arching principles which will underpin the arrangements being developed to give effect to an affordable rental scheme.  Work on the developing the detailed terms of the scheme is ongoing.

The scheme is expected to work on the basis of qualifying tenants paying the majority of the rental cost from their own resources, with the State helping to meet the shortfall. A State intervention - such as a subsidy - would be applied to bridge the gap between what people can afford, and what the housing market charges. Such a scheme would also facilitate and incentivise private investment into this sector.