Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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50. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the degree to which he expects to be in a position to meet the most urgent and pressing housing needs in the shortest possible time with particular reference to addressing the housing crisis; his views on whether he needs to invoke emergency legislation to address the issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52280/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Recognising the serious challenge we face in terms of housing, the Government has prioritised the development and implementation of the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness.  Rebuilding Ireland is a €6 billion, multi-annual, broadly based action plan which seeks to increase the overall supply of new homes to 25,000 per annum by 2020; deliver an additional 50,000 social housing units in the period to 2021; and meet the housing needs of some 87,000 households through the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme.

Strong progress on implementation is already being made.  On the social housing construction front, we have a programme of works on 770 sites that will deliver over 12,300 new homes, with the number of schemes in the programme growing on a weekly basis.  Clearly, we want to see a greater emphasis on direct building of social housing than was envisaged originally under Rebuilding Ireland. In this regard, we will see almost 5,000 new social homes built in 2018, including 3,800 by local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs).

In addition to the established local authority and AHB direct-build programme, activity continues apace across a range of other measures, including for example, acquisitions by local authorities and AHBs, the Housing Assistance Payment scheme and the Rental Accommodation Scheme, which are delivering tangible housing solutions for thousands of households.  The target for 2017 is for the needs of over 21,000 households to be met through the full range of social housing programmes and I believe that this will be comfortably exceeded.  Progress on delivery is published by my Department on a quarterly basis and a full output report across all schemes is provided on an annual basis.

Beyond social housing, all relevant indicators – including planning permissions, construction commencement notices and connections to the ESB grid - are showing very significant upward trends in home-building activity. 

I am satisfied the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan, together with initiatives announced on foot of the targeted review of progress which was undertaken over recent months, as well as additional measures announced under Budget 2018, provide a robust framework for addressing the housing and homelessness challenges we face.  My focus and that of all delivery agents will remain firmly on implementation and delivery to ensure that the range of objectives and targets set are achieved.