Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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192. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the average cost per unit of the first tranche of 500 social housing units to be delivered through public private partnerships under Rebuilding Ireland; the length of time this cost is to be paid down; the public service benchmarking exercise underpinning the agreement; and when the five separate developments will commence. [3617/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Social Housing PPP Programme involves an investment with a capital value of €300 million.  It is to deliver 1,500 social housing units in total, via three bundles.

The first bundle, as referred to by the Deputy, comprises six PPP sites and will provide over 500 units in the Greater Dublin Area.  Two of the sites are located in the Dublin City Council area with one each in the County Council areas of South Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow and Louth. A contract notice for this bundle was published on 12th May 2017 in the Official Journal of the European Union and expressions of interest were submitted by five candidates.  Based on a detailed evaluation of these submissions, the following three candidates have been shortlisted to tender-

- BAM PPP PGGM Cooperative U.A.;

- Comhar; and

- Torc Housing Partnership.

Details regarding these tenderers are available on the National Development Finance Agency website at .

Each individual bundle of PPP sites takes an estimated 37-48 months to deliver in total, including planning, procurement and construction.  It is expected that construction on the first bundle of sites will commence later this year, with units becoming available from 2019.

The Social Housing PPP Programme is being delivered through the ‘availability’ based PPP model. Under this type of contract, as the private partner, the PPP project company designs, builds, finances and maintains public buildings on sites provided by the State, in this case through the local authority.  Payment is made by the State only once construction of the buildings is complete and the units are ready to house tenants. The payment comprises a monthly ‘availability’ and performance-based payment (or unitary charge) made over the term of the 25-year contract.

The amount of the availability payment is a bid item in the selection of the preferred tender. This means that, when a bidder tenders for the PPP project, the level of monthly payment is considered in assessing the competing tenders. As the Deputy will understand, given that the tender process is currently underway, and in order to ensure that the State receives value for money, these costings are of a commercially sensitive nature.