Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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657. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the per annum target and delivery of the repair and lease scheme in 2016, 2017 and 2018; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3242/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Repair and Leasing Scheme, RLS, has been developed to assist private property owners and local authorities or approved housing bodies (AHBs) to harness the accommodation potential that exists in certain vacant dwellings across Ireland.

The scheme is targeted at owners of vacant dwellings who cannot afford or access the funding needed to bring their dwellings up to the required standard for rental property. Subject to the suitability of the dwelling for social housing, and the agreement of the property owner, the cost of the necessary repairs will be met up-front by the local authority or an approved housing body.

The RLS was established on a pilot basis in Waterford and Carlow local authorities in October 2016 and expanded nationwide from 23 February 2017. No targets were set for the scheme in 2016. Individual targets for 2017 were set for each local authority and these are set out in tabular form below.

Provisional 2017 outputs, across the range of delivery methods available to local authorities and approved housing bodies, were published on 15 January 2018 and are available on my Department’s website at the following link:

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My Department is currently validating data from local authorities in order to report detailed progress on the RLS in the final quarter of 2017. This will be published shortly. However, at the end of the third quarter 2017, 292 dwellings had been deemed suitable and local authorities were negotiating with properties owners; a further 231 dwellings were being inspected for suitability by local authorities; 18 Agreements to Lease had been signed. A detailed breakdown of the RLS scheme data for the third quarter of 2017 is available on my Department’s website at the following link:

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Funding of €32 million is available for RLS for 2018 with an overall target of 800 dwellings. The target number of social houses to be delivered across all delivery mechanisms in each local authority area out to 2021 was confirmed to each local authority on 5 January 2018, with a particular focus on 2018 delivery. Each local authority chief executive is now required to furnish a report by mid-February, confirming and setting out how their local authority will deliver on its social housing target over the coming years. The targets and details of the delivery programme of each local authority will then be published.

Tackling vacancy continues to be a key focus and, in that context, I announced a range of improvements to the existing scheme on 22 January 2018 following the second housing summit with local authority chief executives. I will be publishing full details of these improvements shortly.

2017 RLS Targets per Local Authority