Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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45. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if he will provide a detailed breakdown of the 11,000 acquired units in Pillar 2 of the rebuilding Ireland action plan for housing and homelessness, detailing the types of acquisitions involved. [28708/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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It is estimated that approximately 11,000 new social housing units, of the 47,000 to be delivered under Rebuilding Ireland: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, will be acquired by local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) directly from the market or the Housing Agency. Final delivery on this and other elements of the delivery of the 47,000 units will ultimately depend on many factors, including activity in the private sector, capacity of local authorities and AHBs and readiness of projects. However, the estimation is that approximately 2,300 units will be acquired by local authorities and 8, 700 by AHBs.

Those to be acquired by local authorities will include second-hand units and turnkeys, while of those to be acquired by AHBs, the majority will be funded using the increased financial allocation available for the Capital Advance Leasing Facility (CALF). This provides an upfront repayable loan of up to 30% of the relevant capital cost of acquisitions, where the units are made available under long-term availability arrangements funded by the Social Housing Current Expenditure Programme (SHCEP). This upfront capital and long-term support allows the AHBs to raise private finance for the balance of the cost, including from the Housing Finance Agency, therefore harnessing off-balance sheet mechanisms.

It is estimated that 1,600 units to be acquired by AHBs will come via a dedicated €70 million fund operating through the Housing Agency, which will facilitate the direct purchase of properties in trust from banks and investors for social housing use. These units will be offered for sale to AHBs, allowing them to access the funding support available under the CALF and the SHCEP, to match loan finance. A further 600 units approximately of those to be purchased by AHBs are likely to be financed under the Capital Assistance Scheme.