Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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239. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the amount of moneys granted to rural resettlement Ireland each year since 2012; when responsibility passed to his Department in relation to this issue; the number of families resettled from an urban centre to each county for each of the years; and 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, ageing and urbanisation. [32011/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department does not currently provide funding to this organisation, nor has it provided funding since 2012. The information in relation to the number of families resettled by the organisation is not collected by my Department.

However, the Government's Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan for Housing and Homelessnesssets out 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 reasonable 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 provides for the development of a National Vacant Housing Re-Use Strategy by early 2017 and within this context, 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 will also consider 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.

As the Deputy may 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 ofA Programme for a Partnership Government.In conjunction with this overarching Strategy, the development of a rural resettlement programme will be considered further in the context of taking forward the range of measures set out in the Rebuilding IrelandAction Plan.