Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

427. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the breakdown, by local authority area which outlines the locations for each of the housing units mentioned by An Taoiseach in Leaders Questions on 7 March 2023 (details supplied), in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12966/23]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

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.

My Department publishes comprehensive programme level statistics on a quarterly basis on social housing delivery activity, including data on build, acquisition, lease and voids programmes. This data is available to 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/. Data for Quarter 4 is currently being collated and will be published in the coming weeks.

My Department also publishes the Social Housing Construction Status Report (CSR). The CSR provides details of social housing developments that have been completed, are under construction or are progressing through the various stages of the design and procurement processes. The most recent publication was for Quarter 3 2022. The report is available at the following link: www.gov.ie/en/publication/2b4cd-social-housing-construction-projects-status-report-q3-2022/

The Department's role in relation to homelessness involves the provision of a national framework of policy, legislation and funding to underpin the statutory role of housing authorities in addressing homelessness at local level. Statutory responsibility in relation to the provision of emergency accommodation and related services for homeless persons rests with individual housing authorities.

The Department does not fund any homeless services directly but provides funding to housing authorities towards the operational costs of homeless accommodation and related services under Section 10 of the Housing Act, 1988. Under the funding arrangements, housing authorities must provide at least 10% of the cost of services from their own resources. Housing authorities may also incur additional expenditure on homeless related services outside of these funding arrangements with the Department.

Under the Exchequer funding arrangements in place between the Department and housing authorities, decisions on the funding, organisation and range of accommodation services to be provided are a matter for the individual housing authorities in consultation with the Statutory Management Group of the relevant regional Joint Homelessness Consultative Forum, and the Department has no function in relation to operational matters. It is a matter for the Management Group to bring forward proposals to the Department that meet the needs of homeless individuals in their administrative area.

Local authorities opened some 500 new emergency beds in the past number of months predominantly in the Dublin Region.

In September 2022 the Department asked all Regional Lead authorities to ensure that that cold weather arrangements were in place throughout the country. The table below outlines the most recent data on the number of additional beds made available.

Other local authorities indicated that they would be able to accommodate the expected demand for emergency accommodation over the cold weather period within existing services.