Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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18. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the way in which Rebuilding Ireland plans to address the commodification and financialisation of housing; and his view on whether the reliance on acquisitions and leasing from the private market to supply a significant share of social housing will continue this trend. [52063/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Rebuilding Ireland has put in place the funding required to substantially accelerate the delivery of social housing. I recently secured a further €500m for additional capital investment in the period to 2021, which means that I have been able to increase the overall target for social housing delivery from 47,000 homes to 50,000, supported by over  €6 billion in funding.

Delivery will be achieved using a blended approach, rather than by pursuing "either/or" solutions or a "one size fits all" approach. There is an increasing emphasis on housing construction programmes, and these will deliver approximately 2/3 of the 50,000 homes target. However, we are also pursuing other vehicles that provide opportunities to deliver social housing solutions that can meet the greatest  number of household needs from the available resources. These include leasing and acquisition opportunities to deliver 1/3 of the 50,000 homes target as well as harnessing the capacity of the private rental market through schemes such as the Housing Assistance Payment. The mix of delivery approaches being pursued also reflects the different range of social housing solutions required by different households.

As indicated earlier, there is now a greater emphasis on the building of social housing and a strong pipeline has been established to underpin 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 with over 770 schemes now in place delivering some 12,300 units.

I consider that there will always be a role for the private market in the supply of social housing. However, as our construction programmes intensify, the proportion of overall supply sourced through acquisition and leasing will reduce commensurately.