Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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205. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the number of housing units that his Department will fund in 2017 in counties Cavan and Monaghan; if his attention has been drawn to the increasing demand for local authority housing in both counties; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40790/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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All local authorities, including Cavan and Monaghan were notified in April 2015 of social housing delivery targets and provisional funding allocations out to end-2017. These are available on my Department’s website at the following link: . Together, these two local authorities have a target to deliver 445 social housing units for the period out to 2017, supported by an allocation of €24 million, to be invested in a combination of building, buying and leasing schemes.

My Department has approved proposals for the delivery of 135 new units of accommodation in respect of Cavan and Monaghan under the local authorities’ own social housing construction programme and the Capital Assistance Scheme. The details of these projects are set out in announcements made in May 2015, July 2015 and January 2016, for which details are available on my Department’s website at the links below, and in projects approved subsequently, listed in the table below.

I am keen that these projects are advanced as soon as possible and funding to be provided to the Cavan and Monaghan Councils in 2017 will be directly linked to this delivery.

My Department will also continue to support Cavan and Monaghan Councils in 2017 in respect of work to return vacant social housing units to productive use and for certain targeted acquisitions. The precise numbers of social houses supported under these programmes will again depend on the numbers undertaken by the local authorities.

Local authorities also use a variety of current-funded mechanisms to secure social housing including the Social Housing Current Expenditure Programme (SHCEP), Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) and Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) programmes, which my Department will continue to support in 2017 and beyond.

The SHCEP is currently funding 36 social housing units in Cavan and Monaghan. An additional 51 units approved for leasing by two approved housing bodies (AHBs) are anticipated to become operational by the end of 2016, bringing the total number of operational units to 87. These units will continue to be funded through SHCEP in 2017 in addition to any additional new units sourced by the local authorities or AHBs.

My Department also supports AHBs to deliver new social housing under the Capital Advance Leasing Facility (CALF) and this is supporting the acquisition and construction of 55 additional units by three AHBs in Cavan and Monaghan. Delivery is contingent on AHBs securing the balance of funding required from private finance or other borrowings. If successful, it is anticipated that these 55 units will be delivered by the end of 2017. Locations include Kingscourt (16 units), Clones (6 units) and Carrickmacross (33 units).

The Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme is currently available in 28 local authority areas, including Cavan and Monaghan County Councils. Since Monaghan County Council’s commencement of the HAP statutory pilot scheme on 1 October 2014, almost 350 households have been supported to date and HAP support will continue into 2017 and beyond. The scheme became statutorily operational in the administrative area of Cavan County Council on 1 December 2016. There are currently more than 16,000 households being supported by the scheme and just over 11,600 of these tenancies have been set-up in 2016 to date.

In relation to RAS, Cavan County Council’s end of year 2015 activity report indicated that there were 562 tenancies supported by the scheme. At the end of 2015, Monaghan County Council reported that there were 256 tenancies supported by RAS. These tenancies will continue to be supported into 2017 and beyond in addition to new tenancies which are added in 2016 and 2017.