Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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282. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if his Department has provided funding to the Housing Agency to buy portfolios of vacant properties for sale and leasing to local authorities; and the status of the implementation of these proposals for reducing the vacant rate of residential dwellings. [34496/16]

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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355. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government following the publication of his action plan for housing and homelessness four months ago the status of the progress made to date on action 5.6 to directly fund the housing agency with €70 million to acquire suitable portfolios of vacant properties for social housing; the number of units of accommodation that have been acquired under this action to date; the number that will be acquired by year end and in the first two quarters of 2017; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35105/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 282 and 355 together.

With the demand for additional social housing units to be delivered at an accelerated pace, initiatives which provide greater efficiency in the delivery of those units are vital. In particular, engaging with banks and investment companies in respect of their vacant/available property portfolios, which normally span a number of local authority jurisdictions, benefits from a national approach. In that context, the Housing Agency currently acts as a central co-ordination body at national level for banks/investors to interact with. This activity began in early 2015 and to date has yielded 174 properties across 29 local authorities at a total value of over €25m.

In a further development of this activity, a new acquisitions initiative was provided for in Rebuilding Ireland (Action 5.6), under which the Housing Agency is to be provided directly with capital funding with the specific focus of engaging with banks and investment companies to acquire properties for social housing nationally, thereby increasing social housing delivery. Under this acquisitions programme, the Agency will use a rotating fund of €70m to acquire vacant properties from banks and private equity investment funds in areas with high levels of social housing demand. In doing this, the Agency will work in close consultation with local authorities to ensure that suitable properties are only purchased in areas where there is a demand for social housing. It is estimated that this mechanism, implementation of which is already underway, will deliver some 1,600 units over the period to 2020. Details of the progress under this initiative will be outlined in future Rebuilding Ireland quarterly progress reports.

In respect of dealing with vacant dwellings generally, Action 5.1 of Rebuilding Ireland undertakes to develop a National Vacant Housing Re-Use Strategy by early 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. It has met twice so far. 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 being undertaken in this area.