Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

467. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government his plans to review the policy of relying on the private sector to build homes and instead give local authorities more of a central role in building in order to address housing lists in view of expert views, as well as the fact that supply does not equate to more affordable homes. [33253/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness includes a clear intent to increase the level and speed of delivery of social housing, as part of the Government’s approach to addressing the current challenges in the housing sector.  The target to deliver 47,000 social housing units through build, refurbishment, acquisition and leasing over the period 2016 to 2021 envisages a central role for local authorities, through their own development programmes and working co-operatively with the approved housing body (AHB) sector. In addition, local authorities have a lead role in the roll out of the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme in meeting the needs of some 80,000 households.

This development activity for social housing is being supported through a significantly increased investment programme of €5.35 billion. While still at an early stage of implementation, there is already strong evidence that the focus on increasing and accelerating housing supply in Rebuilding Ireland is yielding results.  In 2016, the housing needs of over 19,000 households were met through a range of housing programmes, supported by expenditure of over €935 million.  A further €1.3 billion has been provided for 2017 to support the accelerated delivery of social housing and the achievement of the 2017 target to meet the housing needs of over 21,000 households.  

While the delivery of social housing through the Part V process will be utilised to the fullest extent, this will be far exceeded by the activity of local authorities and AHBs who already have large scale social housing development programmes underway.  This can be seen in the Status Reports on Social Housing Construction Projects which my Department has published, the latest of which is for the period to end Quarter 1 2017 and is available at the following link: .

The report provides details of over 600 social housing projects, involving the construction of over 10,000 new social homes across the 31 local authority areas.  The scale of the construction pipeline represents a major escalation in the social housing build programme and more projects are being added on an ongoing basis, to ensure we deliver on the Rebuilding Ireland targets.

In addition, a focused review of Rebuilding Ireland is now underway, targeted for completion in September. The aim of the review is to build on the significant progress already being made, strengthen the measures in place and identify additional measures to underpin further momentum in the months and years ahead.