Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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240. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the average time it takes for each local authority to relet council homes after they become vacant in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17875/19]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The management and maintenance of local authority housing stock, including pre-letting repairs to vacant properties, responsive repairs and implementing planned maintenance programmes, is a matter for each individual local authority, in line with Section 58 of the Housing Act 1966.  Local authorities return vacant properties to use through their own resources but my Department also continues to provide exchequer support to local authorities under the voids programme to support the timely re-tenanting of social homes that become vacant and require significant investment prior to re-letting.

Local authorities will always have a level of vacancy in their housing stock, as the turnover of stock is continuous. All local authorities, however, are actively encouraged to ensure all vacant properties in their stock are brought back into use as expeditiously as possible.  Local authorities have been well supported by my Department in this regard, as well as utilising their own resources to make social homes available to new tenants as soon as possible.

On an ongoing basis, the National Oversight & Audit Commission (NOAC) reviews the social housing stock level in local authorities every year, including the number of vacant local authority houses at a particular point in time.  NOAC’s activities in this regard are summarised in its Annual Performance Indicator Reports for the years 2014-2017; the most recent data on a local authority basis are set out in the 2017 report which is available on the NOAC website, at the following .