Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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811. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the amount of the €70 million allocated by his Department in 2017 for the Housing Agency fund to purchase vacant houses which has been drawn down to date; the number of units which have been purchased with this fund to date; the number of these units which have been sold onto local authorities and-or approved housing bodies; and the average cost per unit of the units purchased to date. [32398/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Under Actions 1.1, 2.5 and 5.6 of the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, the Housing Agency is actively engaged with banks and investment companies in relation to its acquisitions programme.  The Agency has been tasked with establishing a revolving fund to acquire some 1,600 units over the period to 2020 for social housing use.

In accordance with the Agency’s profile of expenditure and the arrangements in place between my Department and the Agency for the management of the Fund, €70 million has now been drawn down. As of 30 June 2017, the Agency had signed contracts for 362 dwellings and 259 of these purchases have closed.  In addition, the Agency has had bids accepted by vendors on a further 100 dwellings.

The process of selling properties on to Approved Housing Bodies is underway.  As of 30 June 2017, the Agency had signed purchase option agreements for 242 properties with Approved Housing Bodies, with the closure of these approved sales, and the consequent replenishment of the Acquisition Fund, expected to commence in September.

The average cost per unit of the units purchased to date is approximately €166,500.