Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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242. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the average turnaround for refurbishing vacant houses owned by local authorities in counties Cavan, Monaghan, Meath, Louth, Longford and Westmeath on an annual basis since January 2018 to October 2020; the annual budget available from January 2018 to October 2020 made available to these counties for restoring council-owned vacant properties; and the percentage of that budget spent during that same period on making council-owned properties habitable in tabular form. [39326/20]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The management and maintenance of local authority housing stock, including the cost of pre-letting repairs to vacant properties and the carrying out of responsive repairs, are matters for each individual local authority under Section 58 of the Housing Act 1966.

Since 2014 Exchequer funding has also been provided through my Department's Voids Programme to support local authorities in preparing vacant units for re-letting. Some €172.3m has been recouped to local authorities under the Voids Programme between 2014 and 2019 inclusive which resulted in 12,495 units being returned to productive use.

One of the key objectives of the Voids Programme is to provide local authorities with funding to help minimise the turnaround and re-let time of vacant units. Statistics in relation to the social housing stock are published by the National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC) in their Annual Reports on Performance Indicators in Local Authorities. These reports provide a range of information in relation to social housing stock, including the average time taken to re-tenant a dwelling. The most recent report, relating to 2018, is available on the NOAC website at the following link: .

The table below provides information in relation to funding allocated from my Departments voids programme and funding claimed for the years 2018 and 2019 for local authorities in Cavan, Monaghan, Meath, Louth, Longford and Westmeath.

*No allocations issued in 2018, funding provided based on claims made.

In respect of 2020, funding of €18.3m was available for the Voids programme. This funding was targeted in the first instance at properties requiring remediation in response to the Covid pandemic and thereafter funded properties under the normal voids programme.

As part of this Governments July Stimulus Package, I secured additional funding of €40million for the Voids programme in 2020. This additional funding will see 2,500 vacant properties brought back into use. There has been very strong local authority uptake in the Voids programme in response.

Final figures and the breakdown across each funding stream for the return of vacant units in relation to 2020 will be available in early 2021.