John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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352. 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 5.3 to work with local authorities to speed up the refurbishment and where possible the re-letting of vacant social housing units; the number of vacant units in each local authority and the average length of time units are vacant in each local authority in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35102/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Since the publication of the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan, I have provided additional support to local authorities by funding an ambitious plan which is tackling the backlog of vacant units that had accumulated. This has resulted in a reduced rate of vacancy reported by some local authorities, including the larger city authorities, of 1-2% of their overall stock. In June 2016 there was an initial allocation of almost €24m for works on 1,300 vacant units. In September, an additional €13.3m was allocated for 755 units. Some further allocations have been made to local authorities on a case by case basis as the need is identified. The exchequer funding my Department provides to prepare vacant units for re-letting is available as an additional support over and above what local authorities provide themselves towards such work and the authorities can and do contribute additional funding if they so wish. My Department’s funding is to support the authorities in tackling those houses that may require a greater level of remediation than the normal level of pre-letting repairs that is the responsibility of local authorities as part of their on-going repair and maintenance of local authority housing. Funding is given on the condition the re-letting of vacant social housing units is achieved with minimal delay.

General statistics on local authority housing stock, including units that may be empty, are published by the National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC). The average length of time units are vacant is not recorded. The most recent statistics are in respect of 2015 and are available at the following link: .