John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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717. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of social houses that he anticipates will finish construction between 10 October 2017 and the end of 2017; the estimated number of these that will be ready for occupation, by scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42659/17]

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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718. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of social houses that have been built to date in 2017 and that are ready for occupation, by scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42660/17]

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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719. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government further to the Taoiseach's recent statement and his own comments that 3,800 social houses would be built in 2018, the locations these houses will be built, by scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42661/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 717 to 719, inclusive, together.

My Department publishes comprehensive status reports on a quarterly basis of all social housing construction schemes for all local authority areas, showing details such as their locations and a range of information relating to their advancement.

The most recent of these reports covers the period up to the end of quarter 2 of 2017; it contains information on the almost 700 schemes or phases of schemes - delivering 11,000 new social homes - currently approved and progressing through planning, design, construction. It also contains details of the homes delivered in 2016 and to the end of quarter 2 of 2017. The report can be accessed at the following link:.

Over 100 of the listed projects are complete, involving over 1,100 new homes, all of which I would expect local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies to have tenanted by now. A further 160 schemes were on site and under construction at end-quarter 2, which are delivering around 2,700 new homes. The precise timing for the advancement of each of these projects, including completion dates and tenanting, is a matter for the relevant local authorities and approved housing bodies. It will be these schemes that will form the basis for construction delivery between now and the end of 2017 and during 2018, when we are targeting the delivery of 3,800 newly built homes by local authorities and approved housing bodies under a range of different initiatives such as local authority construction, rapid delivery, regeneration programmes and construction and turnkey developments.

My Department also publishes statistics on the number of properties constructed by all local authorities and approved housing bodies for letting to those on their social housing waiting lists, which can be accessed on my Department’s website at the following link: .Information on quarter two of 2017 is currently being finalised and will be published shortly, with information on quarter three of 2017 to follow thereafter.

In Budget 2017, an increased investment of €1.3 billion was provided for housing, which is supporting the delivery of over 21,000 social housing solutions this year. Over 5,000 of which will be delivered through our capital programme of building, acquiring, refurbishing and leasing homes to be made available to those on our social housing waiting lists.

Further project approvals are being added to the construction programme as they are developed by local authorities and approved housing bodies. I am keen that all local authorities advance their social housing construction programme as speedily as possible and I have assured them that funding is in place to support their activity in this regard.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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722. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of houses that were completed and ready for occupation during 2016 in each local authority; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42664/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Over 19,000 households were housed last year under the range of Social Housing Programmes. Statistics on the number of social housing properties constructed, purchased and leased by local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies are published on my Department’s website at the following link: .

In terms of overall housing construction, the ESB residential connections dataset provides the best available indicator, at this point in time, that a residential unit is becoming available for occupation. A comprehensive list of the number of ESB residential connections, broken down by Local Authority area, from 1996 onwards is available through the following link on my Department’s website: .

My Department and the CSO are working with the ESB in order to provide a more detailed breakdown of the ESB connections dataset. Once additional ESB data is received by the CSO, it will be further analysed and matched to other datasets with initial results expected by the end of the year.

In parallel, my Department, through a special Housing Data Analytics Group (HDAG), is also working with the CSO and other public sector bodies such as the Housing Agency, Central Bank, ESRI, Department of Finance, SOLAS and local authorities to further refine and improve housing activity statistics and data more generally. The HDAG is also consulting with residential construction industry sources on this topic.