Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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455. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the level of funding that has been approved for Kildare County Council for the construction of houses in 2017 in respect of specific housing schemes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13722/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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A substantial pipeline of new social housing construction projects is already in place, both in terms of Local Authority direct build and Approved Housing Body (AHB) projects. We are now seeing progress through this pipeline, as is evident in the Social Housing Construction Projects Status Report,which I published on 20 February 2017.

The report contains a range of information, including projects delivered in 2016 and those at various stages of advancement through planning, design and construction. It also includes information such as local authority area, project name, AHB name where applicable, the number of units and the status of each application in terms of its current level of advancement. The report can be accessed at the following link: .

Funding is provided to local authorities in line with their advancement of projects through construction. I expect that a number of the projects listed for Kildare County Council will commence on site during 2017, as well as in subsequent years; the precise timing for the advancement of each of these projects is a matter for Kildare County Council, in the first instance.

Accordingly, the level of funding that will be provided in 2017 to Kildare County Council for their social housing delivery activity will be directly linked to the scale of delivery they achieve on these projects. I am keen that these projects are advanced as soon as possible and have assured local authorities that funding is in place to support their activity in this regard.