Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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1285. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government his plans to ensure the production of local authority housing in line with demand by county nationwide; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4955/20]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Over the period 2016 to end Quarter 3 2019, over 90,000 additional households across the country had their housing needs met through a Rebuilding Ireland supported scheme. Detailed statistics in relation to social housing delivery are published on a quarterly basis and the most recent data, up to Q3 2019, are available on my Department’s website at the following link:

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Data to end 2019 is currently being finalised and will be published shortly.

It is very important to focus resources, funding and attention to where it is most needed. Local authorities are the competent authorities for delivering homes for people living in their functional areas and my Department supports them in this work. Connecting targets to established need is a key element of this work. Details on the number of households qualified for social housing support in each local authority area are set out in the statutory Summary of Social Housing Assessments (SSHA), which has been carried out annually since 2016. The purpose of the SSHA is to capture the total number of households qualified for social housing support across the country whose social housing need is not being met, in order to better inform policy and plan for the delivery of the right types of housing support. The data garnered through the Summary allows the Department to target the delivery of social housing supports under the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, to those most in need.

The most recently conducted SSHA details the number of households on all local authority waiting lists as at 24 June 2019 (the count date) and shows that 68,693 households were assessed as qualified and being in need of social housing support. This represents a decrease of 3,165 households or 4.4% on the previous assessment in June 2018. Indeed, since the Government's Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan was launched in 2016, the numbers have decreased from 91,600 to 68,693, a reduction of 25%.

The SSHA provides local authorities with information about current demand for social housing. It is also important that local authorities are aware of, and planning for, the potential future demand for social housing when they are preparing their Housing Strategies as part of their Development Plan process. To this end, National Policy Objective 37 of the National Planning Framework requires that each local authority should undertake a "Housing Need and Demand Assessment" for their area. This will be important in estimating likely future housing need across tenures, including social housing need.

Work on the development of the HNDA process is ongoing in my Department. Research on population projections at county level is being progressed with the ESRI and development of a HNDA tool with the Scottish Centre for Housing Market Analysis is also in train. This new evidence-based approach will form the basis of a more accurate and consistent projection of demand for different tenures of housing.

My Department continues to provide additional resources and explore new opportunities and innovations to increase supply. Technical resources, which during the inactive years had been lost to local authorities, continue to be replenished. Streamlined approval processes for capital projects have been put in place, including a revised single stage approval process. A range of supports have also been put in place including:

- Internal Layouts for Social Housing;

- Employers Requirements;

- Volumetric Frameworks;

- Rapid Build Framework;

- Guidance Notes, including on Turnkey Delivery;

- Planning Reforms;

- Heights & Apartment Guidelines;

- A newly restructured Housing Delivery Coordination Office has been established within the LGMA to further strengthen the collaborative work between local authorities and my Department.