Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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31. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the increase planned in the number of new build social housing units in 2016 and 2017 compared to the numbers announced by the previous Minister. [28722/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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All local authority areas already have targets in respect of social housing delivery out to 2017 arising from the Social Housing Strategy 2020; those delivery targets have involved a combination of building, purchase and leasing schemes and good progress has been made to date on these, in particular in kick-starting a new pipeline of local authority and approved housing body construction projects and making targeted acquisitions to achieve early delivery.

Reflecting the increased targets of Rebuilding Ireland: An Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, new individual targets will be issued which will be based on the Summary of Social Housing Assessments 2016. The Assessment process is now well advanced and will provide updated figures of national housing need which will allow for social housing delivery and resources to be aligned with the up-to-date priority housing needs locally. Following completion of the Assessments process by year end, I expect to be in a position to notify local authorities of their revised targets very early in 2017.

The kick-starting of delivery under the Social Housing Strategy had seen a substantial new set of social housing projects launched, with almost €680 million allocated for over 3,900 social housing new builds, turnkey developments and acquisitions. Since those announcements, I have continued to approve further additional projects and details of these latest approvals will be provided shortly on my Department’s website.

While we await the completion of the Summary of Social Housing Assessments 2016, my Department is continuing to work actively with local authorities and with approved housing bodies in the development and approval of new projects. On a day-to-day basis, projects are being planned and developed and I am keen that they are advanced as soon as possible. I have assured the local authorities that funding is available to fully support their efforts in this regard. I am pleased, also, to see the increasing number of such projects that are now starting on site and advancing through construction.