Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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635. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government his views on the assertion of his predecessor that the social housing capital programme is adequately financed in view of the scale of the housing crisis, years of drastic underspending and the fact that the capital housing budget is still 72% below 2008 spending levels or 65% below the historical average levels for 2004 to 2009. [30945/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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While I fully acknowledge that funding for social housing delivery was severely constrained for a number of years, given the economic circumstances prevailing at the time,  under the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, the Government has committed funding of €5.35 billion to accelerate the delivery of 47,000 social housing units through build, refurbishment, acquisitions and leasing, over the period to 2021.  In addition, €226 million is being provided for the Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund through investment in key enabling infrastructure. 

This €5.35 billion investment comprises some €4.5 billion in capital funding and €844 million in support of programmes funded from current expenditure.  Overall, over 40% of the available capital fiscal space for the 2017 to 2021 period is being assigned to housing. In total, €1.3billion is being made available for housing-related purposes thus year.

The good progress being made under the social housing capital programme is clearly evident from the latest Status Report on Social Housing Construction Projects, which is available at the following link: http://rebuildingireland.ie/news/social-housing-construction-projects-report-2017/.  The report shows that there is a substantial construction pipeline in place which will see over 10,000 new social houses being built over the coming years across 600 different projects.  These projects are funded under a range of initiatives such as local authority construction, rapid delivery projects, regeneration programmes and construction developments under the Capital Assistance Scheme and the Capital Advance Leasing Facility for funding projects by Approved Housing Bodies. 

The scale of the construction pipeline as at end quarter 1 in 2017, represents a major escalation in the social housing build programme and more projects are being added on an ongoing basis to ensure delivery on the Rebuilding Ireland targets.