Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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126. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of social and affordable homes that were built in County Cork in the years 2021 and 2022. [3403/23]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Housing for All is the Government’s plan to increase the supply of housing to an average of 33,000 per year over the next decade. This includes the delivery of 90,000 social homes, 36,000 affordable purchase homes and 18,000 cost rental homes. Housing for All is supported by an investment package of over €4bn per annum, through an overall combination of €12bn in direct Exchequer funding, €3.5bn in funding through the Land Development Agency and €5bn funding through the Housing Finance Agency.

Under Housing for All, the Government will deliver 47,600 new build social homes; 3,500 social homes through long-term leasing and 28,500 new affordable homes in the period 2022-2026. In September 2021, I issued social housing targets to each local authority for the period 2022-2026 and in March 2022 I issued local authority targets for affordable purchase and cost-rental.

In 2021, 43 new build social homes were delivered in Cork City and 391 in Cork County. In 2022, data is available to the end of Quarter 3. In this period, 132 new build social homes were delivered in Cork City Council and 297 in Cork County Council. Comprehensive programme level statistics on a quarterly basis on social housing delivery activity in all local authorities is available until the end of Quarter 3 2022 and is published on the statistics page of my Department’s website, at the following link: www.gov.ie/en/collection/6060e-overall-social-housing-provision/ . The Quarter 4 social housing statistics are being collated and will be published in due course.

My Department also publishes the Social Housing Construction Status Report (CSR). The CSR provides details of social housing developments and their location that have been completed, are under construction or are progressing through the various stages of the design and tender processes. The most recent publication was for Quarter 3 2022. All Construction Status Reports are available at the following link: gov.ie - Social Housing Construction Projects - Status Reports (www.gov.ie)

Last year represented the commencement of a very ambitious programme of delivery of affordable housing. A pipeline of affordable housing delivery is being developed by local authorities, by Approved Housing Bodies using the Cost Rental Equity Loan and by the Land Development Agency. Furthermore, local authorities have been begun collating information on the delivery of affordable homes in their area in the same manner as is currently done for social housing.

It is intended that information across all delivery streams will be gathered by my Department and I expect that my Department will be in a position to begin reporting on affordable delivery in national quarterly delivery statistics in Quarter 1 2023.