Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Considerable work has been ongoing between the Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH), a number of larger Tier 3 Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) and their financial advisors on the development of a vehicle for delivering private financing for AHBs providing social housing in line with ambitions set out in the Government's Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan on Housing and Homelessness.  The Department provided funding for this project under the Innovation Fund.

The ICSH work is being undertaken in three phases, the first two of which have been completed, those being the phases designed to test the market interest in investing in social housing and the appetite among AHBs for private finance.  While the ICSH had hoped to have completed the final phase of the work by now, focused on the structuring of special purpose vehicles, this important work remains ongoing.

One of the issues which has given rise to the delay in concluding the work is the need to take account of other private finance arrangements/vehicles that certain AHBs have put in place in parallel. The decision by Eurostat to reclassify AHBs has also influenced the progression of this final phase of work. Alongside this project, three individual AHBs have been successful in accessing private finance from financial institutions to deliver new social housing, with each financial institution having their own specific requirements for lending and investing.

While the completion of the outstanding phase of work is primarily a matter for the ICSH, it is hoped that they will be in a position to bring it to finality as soon as possible. 

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Payment and Availability (P&A) funding to Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) was introduced by my Department for leased properties, secured by AHBs, in 2009. It was subsequently extended to the acquisition and construction of properties by AHBs and facilitates delivery under the Capital Advance Loan Facility (CALF), the Mortgage to Rent Scheme (MTR), the Housing Agency Acquisitions Fund (HAA) and the Repair and Leasing Scheme (RLS). All P&A funding is underpinned by a P&A agreement, which is a template contractual arrangement between an AHB and a local authority setting out the terms under which AHBs make properties available to local authorities for the purpose of providing social housing support.

The average cost of P&A agreements varies having regard to the level of discount on market rent applicable to each specific funding scheme, together with variations in market rents across different geographical areas and property types. The average annual cost per unit of each category of P&A agreement, and the total number of operational units supported each year, is set out in Table 1. A breakdown of the data by the categories sought is not available before 2014.  As has been clarified separately for the Deputy, P&A costs are not comparable to the payments arising under Social Housing PPP contracts.

The total P&A spend for 2018 is set out in Table 2. The total cost of such units, broken down by the categories sought, in not available before 2018. The data below is based on local authority claims for operational P&A agreements recorded on the Department’s SHCEP financial management system. Any variations in data between operational figures and total output across build, acquisition and leasing delivery streams is due to the time lag in the submission of claims to the Department in respect of new units after delivery.

Table 1: Average Annual P&A Cost and Total Operational Units under P&A 2014 - 2018

Table 2: Total Cost P&A agreements 2018