Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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1421. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the per annum target for the repair and lease scheme in 2018; the number delivered to date; the anticipated expenditure per annum from 2019 to 2021, inclusive; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36880/18]

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

The RLS 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 upfront by the local authority or an AHB.

At the end of Q1 2018, a total of 942 applications had been received under the scheme. Local authorities were engaging with the property owners in relation to 684 properties, 52 agreements for lease had been signed and 15 homes had been delivered and tenanted. A detailed breakdown of the RLS scheme data up to end Q1 2018 is available on my Department’s website at the following link:

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I have made €32 million available for the scheme in 2018 and a total of €140 million over the period of Rebuilding Ireland 2016-2021.

Over the period 2016 to 2021, the national target is for the delivery of an additional 50,000 social housing homes through Build, Acquisition and Leasing Schemes. The ambition is for 33,500 of these homes to be delivered through new build programmes including Part V; for 6,500 to be delivered through Acquisition programmes including the Housing Agency Acquisition Programme; and for the remaining 10,000 homes to be delivered under a range of leasing initiatives including the RLS. Out of the total 10,000 homes to be delivered under Leasing, it is expected that 2,000 will be leased by local authorities in 2018 under a range of initiatives, including the Repair and Leasing Scheme (800), long term leasing and the new Enhanced Lease.

I wrote to all Local Authorities on 18 April 2018 setting out their social housing delivery targets for build, acquisition and leasing for 2018, and for the period 2018-2021. The targets are published at the following link: 

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The RLS data for end Q2 2018 are currently being collated and will be published shortly.