Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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26. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government his strategy to take advantage of the large number of vacant homes nationwide in order to alleviate the homelessness crisis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29943/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Action 5.1 of the Government’s Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness – Rebuilding Irelandundertakes to develop a National Vacant Housing Re-Use Strategy by 2017. To this end, the Housing Agency, which has lead responsibility for co-ordinating the development of the Strategy, has established a working group to inform the Strategy, with senior representatives from my Department, local authorities and from the Housing Agency itself. Its first meeting was held on 30 September.

My Department and the Housing Agency are liaising with local authorities and with the Central Statistics Office in order to obtain a better understanding of the numbers, characteristics and reasons why homes are vacant. A number of local authorities have commenced, or are planning to commence, pilot programmes to identify vacant homes and bring them back into use; these pilot programmes will inform the Strategy. In addition, the Strategy will be informed by international best practice and experience, and research is also being undertaken in this area.

Furthermore, a new Repair and Leasing Scheme (RLS) has recently been announced to assist private property owners and local authorities or Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) to bring vacant houses into social housing use as new homes for families on local authority waiting lists. The new Scheme will operate initially in Waterford and Carlow and my Department will work closely with other local authorities to roll it out around the country over the course of the next six months.

I have secured €140m for the successful implementation of this Scheme over the next five years. This Scheme has significant potential and I am hopeful that it can bring at least 3,500 vacant houses back into productive use between now and 2021.

In addition, under a new “Buy and Renew” initiative, my Department will support local authorities and approved housing bodies to purchase private housing units in need of remediation, renew them and make them available for social housing use.  An initial capital provision of €25 million will be available for this initiative in 2017.