John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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350. 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 5.1 to develop a national vacant housing re-use strategy; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35100/16]

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 Ireland commits to develop a National Vacant Housing Re-Use Strategy by Q1 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. The working group has met twice to date with a further meeting scheduled for later this month.

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 help to inform the Strategy. Furthermore, the Strategy will be informed by international best practice and experience, and research is currently being undertaken in this area.

While the development of the Strategy is being progressed, I have already announced a number of new initiatives aimed at addressing vacancy and facilitating the reuse of vacant houses. A new Repair and Leasing Scheme (RLS) has recently been launched by my Department 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 AHBs to purchase private housing units in need of remediation, which will be refurbished and made available for social housing use.  An initial capital provision of €25 million is being made available for this initiative in 2017.