Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

167. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the progress made in the programme for Government on housing. [33056/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Providing affordable, quality and accessible housing for people is a top priority for the Government, as outlined in the Programme for a Partnership Government. In order to effectively deal with housing and homelessness, the Programme included two key initial actions; firstly, a new Cabinet Minister for Housing would be appointed and, secondly, that Minister would prep are an action plan for housing.

Following my appointment as Minister, and building on the excellent work of the Special Oireachtas Committee on Housing and Homelessness, as well as drawing from an extensive stakeholder engagement process, including a number of large stakeholder consultation events around the country, Rebuilding Ireland: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness was published on 19 July 2016.

Given the inter-connectedness of the issues impacting on housing and homelessness and the cross cutting nature of these issues it was important that Rebuilding Ireland dealt with all areas of the housing system. Therefore, Rebuilding Ireland is based across the five key pillars of Addressing Homelessness; Accelerating Social Housing; Building More Homes; Improving the Rental Sector; and Utilising Existing Housing. The Plan includes over 80 practical and time-based actions structured around these five key Pillars and is available to view and download at .

Once the Plan was published, the focus quickly switched to active implementation of the Plan which is overseen by the Cabinet Committee on Housing, chaired by An Taoiseach. The Cabinet Committee reviews progress on delivery across the range of actions to be delivered by various Departments and Agencies.

Rebuilding Ireland contains a clear commitment to reporting regular progress, through both a monthly housing activity report and a quarterly overall progress report. The First Quarterly Progress Report will be published shortly and will be available to view and download at .