Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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353. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the measures his Department has taken over the past five years to ensure an adequate supply of social housing is available to approved social housing applicants; the immediate measures he will take to alleviate the current crisis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10357/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Government’s Housing Policy Statement, published in June 2011, clearly identified that the priority for Government is to meet the most acute needs of households applying for social housing support in all local authority areas, by providing housing support based on choice, fairness and equity across tenures and on delivering quality outcomes for the resources invested. The 2011 Housing Policy Statement is available on my Department’s website at the following link:

In the period 2011 to 2014 inclusive, in excess of 26,000 social housing units were delivered under a range of programmes, by local authorities and approved housing bodies. Since then, through the actions set out in the Social Housing Strategy 2020, which was published in November 2014, a number of important measures have been taken to increase supply of social housing. The Strategy is available on my Department’s website at the following link:

The Social Housing Strategy 2020 provides for clear, measurable actions and targets to increase the supply of social housing, reform delivery arrangements and meet the housing needs of all households on the housing list with flexibility to meet future demand. In total, 110,000 new social housing units are targeted for delivery with 35,000 new units to be delivered by local authorities and approved housing bodies, and 75,000 households to be supported mainly through the Housing Assistance Payment Scheme.

The Social Housing Strategy 2020 has been supported with funding of €1.7 billion under Budgets 2015 and 2016 providing for the delivery of 13,000 social housing units in 2015, representing an increase of 86% on the circa 7,000 units delivered in 2014 and an ambitious target for 2016 of 17,000 units.

Importantly, with capital project announcements in May and July 2015, and in January 2016, local authorities and approved housing bodies now have a strong pipeline of construction, turnkey and acquisition projects, which will deliver some 3,900 homes, with approved budget costs of some €680 million.

A full report on actions delivered under the Strategy in 2015 can be found in the Social Housing Output in 2015 report. The report, which was published on 26 January 2016, in collaboration with the Housing Agency , is available on my Department’s website at the following link:

Additional data on the breakdown of output, across all social housing delivery programmes, by local authority in 2015, is available on my Department’s website at the following link:

In order to address issues in relation to wider housing supply, which in turn affects the demand for social housing, in May 2014, the Government published Construction 2020 – A Strategy for a Renewed Construction Strategy. The Strategy contains 75 Actions in total and my Department, is involved in the delivery of over 30 of these Actions. The central aim of the Strategy is to triple housing output by 2020, and to add up to 60,000 jobs to the sector over the same period. Construction 2020 – A Strategy for a Renewed Construction Strategy can be accessed at the following link:

Laying the Foundations: Housing Actions Report, which was published on 14 April 2016, provides information on thirty-one major actions taken since mid-2014, to increase the supply of all forms of housing. The report is available on my Department’s website at the following link:

The new Programme for a Partnership Government, published on 11 May 2016, sets out further actions to specifically address the housing shortage and includes a number of measures to increase and expedite the delivery of social housing units. The document is available at the following link:

Housing is an absolute priority for this Government and a key priority, in the Programme for a Partnership Government, is the preparation and publication of an ‘Action Plan for Housing’ within the Government’s first 100 days. The Action Plan will be drafted with input from a number of key Departments, drawing also on the work of the Special Oireachtas Committee on Housing and Homelessness, which is due to submit a final report to the Dáil on 17 June 2016.

The Plan will come under the overall governance of a Cabinet Committee on Housing chaired by An Taoiseach and including all the key ministers. The Plan will be delivery focussed and will build on the considerable work already carried out or underway in my Department. It will include actions to boost supply of all types of housing in the immediate, medium and longer- terms.