Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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2022. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of social housing and-or affordable housing units built or purchased by each of the approved housing bodies (details supplied) in each of the years 2014 to 2016 and to date in 2017; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38135/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) are making an important contribution to social housing delivery as envisaged in Rebuilding Ireland. My Department and local authorities administer a number of funding programmes to assist AHBs with the cost of building, buying and leasing new social houses. All funding is conditional on the properties being made available to households on local authority waiting lists.

Under the Capital Assistance Scheme (CAS), funding of up to 100% is available to AHBs towards the provision of accommodation for people with disabilities, the elderly and homeless who are social housing qualified. The funding is provided by way of a local authority loan to the AHB with funding to cover the loan amount being drawn down by the local authority from my Department. A provision of €66 million has been provided nationally for the scheme in 2017. As the scheme is administered by the local authorities, details relating to the AHBs providing the accommodation and the categories of persons involved would be available from the authorities rather than my Department.

Under the Social Housing Current Expenditure Programme (SHCEP), my Department, together with local authorities, can support AHBs to construct, purchase or lease housing units and make them available for social housing. The housing units are secured under long-term leases/ availability arrangements between local authorities and AHBs, the cost of which is recouped to local authorities by my Department.  The Capital Advance Leasing Facility (CALF) funding is capital support provided to AHBs by local authorities, to assist with the financing of the construction or acquisition of units that will be provided to household on local authority waiting lists. CALF is a low interest loan to allow them access to early working capital (up to 30% of the relevant costs) for the purchase, construction or refurbishment of properties. Low interest rate borrowings are available to AHBs from the Housing Finance Agency and other private finance sources to support the financing of the balance. A provision of €43 million has been provided for the scheme in 2017. The capital advance is repayable by the AHB to the local authority at the end of a payment and availability agreement, usually 30 years. All proposals for CALF are submitted to the Department by AHBs for review and to ensure that the project complies with the terms of the CALF and that there are sufficient funds available.

In addition, AHBs may fund the construction or acquisition of properties which are secured for social housing by local authorities using their own reserves. Details of such activity by individual AHBs are not collated by my Department.

Details of the annual social housing output in each of the years 2014, 2015, and 2016 as well as the specific output under each of the funding programme are available on my Department's website at the following link - .