Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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265. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will provide details of monies returned from the four local authorities in Dublin to his Department by category for each of the years 2019 to 2021, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45536/22]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The funding system that applies to local authorities in Ireland is a complex one, as those authorities derive their income from a variety of sources including commercial rates, charges for goods and services and funding from Central Government including my Department but also other government departments and state agencies. Most of the funding from Central Government to local authorities must be used for specified services. These can be grouped into 5 broad programme categories: housing, transport, recreational, education and environment.

My Department has a wide and diverse business agenda, covering a broad range of functions, including local authority housing, voluntary housing, homeless services, estate regeneration, energy efficiency retrofitting, housing grants, rural water schemes, urban renewal/regeneration, and fire services.   In order to achieve its business objectives, my Department allocates significant resources to an extensive range of organisations, including local authorities, dedicated agencies, and other bodies; some allocations, depending on the programmes concerned, are made on a national or other non-county basis in the form of grant funding.  

Grant funding is provided primarily on the basis of vouched expenditure, as opposed to specific up front annual allocations, once all necessary requirements as detailed in grant assistance schemes are met by the bodies/organisations concerned and that appropriate systems and procedures are in place to ensure the exercise of proper financial controls.   Accordingly, the circumstances of funding being returned to the Central Exchequer through my Department do not generally arise. I'm not aware of any refund in respect of these grant programmes from the four Dublin local authorities between 2019 and 2021.

However there was some funding returned to the Local Government Fund in respect of the Covid Commercial Rates Waiver/Support package.  In early 2021, Dublin City Council returned €1,095,036 and Dun Laoghaire/ Rathdown County Council returned €10,196 in respect of the 2020 rates waiver.  Similarly in March 2022, South Dublin County Council returned €70,148 in respect of the 2021 waiver.

Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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266. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will provide details of monies provided to the four local authorities in Dublin by his Department for the provision of retrofitting of council housing stock by category for each of the years 2019 to 2021 and to date in 2022, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45539/22]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Since 2013, Exchequer funding has been provided through my Department's Energy Efficiency Retrofit Programme (EERP) to support local authorities with the retrofit of local authority owned homes requiring insulation and energy upgrade works. Since the programme commenced in 2013 over 75,000 homes have been retrofitted with a total exchequer spend of €184 million under the scheme.

In response to the Programme for Government commitment, my Department launched a newly revised ten year Energy Efficiency Programme in 2021 for local authority owned housing. This new programme set a BER performance requirement of “B2” or cost optimal level. The upscaling of the works included in the programme sees a substantial overall increase in funding being made available for insulation, windows and doors and heating upgrades, specifically the installation of a Heat Pump and associated works. The installation of gas/oil boilers are no longer supported under the energy efficiency programme funded by my Department.

An annualised breakdown of the funding provided and the number of properties upgraded under the Energy Efficiency Retrofit programme for the years 2013-2021 is available on my Department's website at the following link:

www.gov.ie/en/publication/668c1-energy-efficiency-retrofitting-programme-expenditure-output/

My Department announced earlier this year that funding will be provided for the upgrade of approximately 2,400 social homes this year, of which 304 have been allocated to Dublin City Council, 68 allocated to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, 81 allocated to Fingal and 146 allocated to South Dublin County Council.  Work in this regard is underway but it will be later this year before significant recoupment claims are lodged with my Department. Full details in relation to the 2022 EERP will be available early in 2023.