Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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15. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of real social houses delivered to date in 2017 by scheme including council new build, council acquisition, council Part V, council returned void, AHB new build, AHB acquisition, AHB part V, and AHB returned void. [52163/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The 2017 target for the delivery of social housing under the categories listed in the Question is 4,450 units, including Local Authority Build, Acquisitions and Voids. Provisional  data to end Q3 2017 indicates that  just over 3,000 of these units had already been delivered.

When speaking in terms of “real social houses”, we must acknowledge other streams of social housing provision, including long-term leasing arrangements, which will bring the target for 2017 to just over 5,000 units. In addition, the Housing Assistance Payment scheme and the Rental Accommodation schemes are delivering tangible housing solutions for thousands of people.  The combined target for 2017 is to meet the housing needs of over 21,000 households through the full range of programmes and I believe that this will be comfortably exceeded. Progress on these targets is published by my Department on a quarterly basis, and also a full output report across all schemes is provided annually.

Clearly, I  want to see a greater emphasis on direct building of social housing than was envisaged originally under Rebuilding Ireland. In 2018 we will see some 5,000 homes built, including 3,800 by local authorities and approved housing bodies, and a strong pipeline is in place to assist in the delivery of these homes.

The construction status report to end Quarter 3 2017 was published earlier this week and shows significant growth in the area of new build activity. Overall, we can see the progress from Q4 – 2016, when there were over 500 schemes, delivering in excess of 8,400 homes, to a situation where there are now over 770 schemes, with some 12,300 associated units. My Department will be continuing to engage proactively with local authorities and AHBs to expand further the programme of projects in the weeks and months ahead.