Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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213. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the amount of moneys granted to rural resettlement Ireland each year for the past 20 years; the number of families resettled from an urban centre to each county for each of the years; if consideration has been given in view of the housing emergency to increase that funding and to accelerate the process to help those on the cities' housing lists, in particular to rural areas under threat of loss of local services due to falling local populations, emigration, aging and urbanisation. [29289/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, my colleague, the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, has overall responsibility for regional and rural matters and is advancing a broadly-based rural development strategy, in the context of the Programme for a Partnership Government.

However, up until 2012, my Department provided grant assistance to Rural Resettlement Ireland for each year as follows:

2004 - €135,000;

2005 - €145,000;

2006 - €135,000;

2007 - €124,991;

2008 - €135,000;

2009 - €94,500;

2010 - €80,325;

2011 - €20,081; and

2012 - €10,000.

Information for pre-2004 funding is not readily available. Details of the number of families resettled in rural areas over this time are not held in my Department.

The Deputy may wish to note the inclusion, in the recently published Rebuilding Ireland: An Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, of a range of measures supportive of the regeneration and renewal of towns and villages across rural Ireland and, consequently, ensuring a vibrant population in those places. It is my aim that all steps are taken to secure the re-use of vacant and under-utilised properties for residential purposes, particularly in the many towns and villages in rural Ireland that contain a significant number of empty houses. Action 5.1 of the Action Plan relates to the development of a National Vacant Housing Re-Use Strategy and I intend to examine the potential to widen the geographical range of social housing location options available to persons seeking such accommodation.

The Strategy will examine the potential for bringing existing but vacant housing back into beneficial use and I intend to examine mechanisms to match such accommodation potential to prospective applicants for social housing, through measures such as the Repair and Leasing Initiative, which will see up-front financial assistance being made available to upgrade empty, but sub-standard, accommodation in return for leasing the property back for social housing purposes. Acquisition and leasing options are also available to local authorities to ensure that households needing accommodation may be provided with that accommodation.

The development of a rural resettlement programme will be considered further, in conjunction with the Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural & Gaeltacht Affairs, in the context of taking forward these measures, the details of which are set out in the Action Plan, which is available on the website www.rebuildingireland.ie.