Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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160. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will ensure that a mechanism is put in place for councils/AHBs to buy homes where there is a notice to quit and the tenants are above the income limits for social housing but below the limit for cost rental; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3713/23]

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 by 2030. 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.

On 19 January my Department issued a circular letter to local authorities advising that social housing acquisitions by local authorities and AHB CALF acquisitions in 2022 would be focused on a number of priority areas, as follows:

- One-bedroom units to deliver on Housing First and meet the short supply in this category;

- Other properties that allow persons/families to exit homelessness; and

- Specific housing required for/suitable for individuals with a disability or other particular

In April, a further circular letter issued to local authorities in relation to social housing acquisitions. The key purpose of this circular was to advise local authorities that I had reinstated the delegated sanction to local authorities in respect of social housing acquisitions which are:

- in one of the priority categories set out in the January circular letter;

- are in line with acquisition cost guidelines; and

- can be completed during 2022.

In November 2022 I extended this until the end of June 2023. Social housing acquisitions must be allocated to a household on the social housing waiting list, in accordance with the local authority allocations scheme. As such, a property cannot be acquired by the local authority for a tenant that is not eligible for social housing supports.

Cost Rental is a new form of rental tenure designed to assist moderate-income households above the income limits for social housing. The Government’s Housing for All plan targets the delivery of 18,000 Cost Rental homes by 2030, primarily through delivery by Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), Local Authorities and the Land Development Agency (LDA). Funding has been allocated to AHBs through the Cost Rental Equity Loan (CREL) scheme, and to Local Authorities through the Affordable Housing Fund (AHF).

Rents for Cost Rental are a direct function of the costs of constructing, financing, managing and maintaining the homes. This means that the lower these costs the more affordable the resulting rents are for the tenants. These costs are modelled over a 40-year period, with the ongoing management and maintenance costs tending to be a large proportion of the overall costs when calculated over this length of time. As such, ensuring properties purchased for Cost Rental are new-build homes and that value engineering with long-term maintenance in mind is considered at the outset can help put downward pressure on costs and assist in making rents more affordable for tenants. A central goal of Cost Rental policy is to deliver the homes in larger numbers at each development. This approach brings economies of scale, which means that the day to day management of properties and their maintenance becomes more financially sustainable than managing individual properties. As such, under the Cost Rental Equity Loan available to AHBs, applications for funding must be for a minimum of 10 properties, with larger developments preferred.

Separately, and under primary legislation, the process of allocating a tenancy under Cost Rental is bound by legislative provisions. Any tenancy must be leased to a tenant whose household falls within prescribed eligibility conditions. These conditions would not facilitate awarding a cost rental tenancy to an ‘in-situ’ tenant. The Regulation broadly require the imposition of a net income limit of €53,000 per household, plus the selection of tenants on an open application basis, and where demand exceeds supply, by use of a lottery of all eligible applicants. The latter aspect was partly designed to ensure equitable access to State-supported Cost Rental homes, and this element in particular would not be compatible with acquiring properties with existing tenancies. Therefore, there are no plans at present to facilitate the purchase of second-hand individual properties for Cost Rental, with the limited capital funding available being focused on the acquisition and development of additional new units to help increase the overall housing stock.