Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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273. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government to provide a breakdown, in tabular form, of the number of targeted and delivered social and affordable homes in Kerry for the years 2021 to 2023 and to date in 2024. [23709/24]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Under Housing for All, the Government will deliver 47,600 new build social homes and 3,500 social homes through long-term leasing in the period 2022-2026. Our clear focus is to increase the stock of social housing through new build projects delivered by local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs). The table below sets out the Build and Leasing targets for Kerry County Council.

My Department publishes comprehensive programme-level statistics on a quarterly basis on social and affordable housing delivery activity by local authorities and AHBs in each local authority area. This data is available to the end of 2023 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/

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. This includes details of which local authority or AHB delivered or is delivering the development. The most recent publication was for Quarter 4 2023. All Construction Status Reports are available at the following link: www.gov.ie/en/collection/cb885-social-housing-construction-projects-status-reports/

A version of the CSR file can also be downloaded for analysis by local authority, funding stream etc. at this link: www.data.gov.ie/dataset/social-housing-construction-status-report-q4-2023

Following the publication of Housing for All in September 2021, I asked all local authorities to prepare Housing Delivery Action Plans to address social and affordable housing needs in their areas over the period 2022-2026, in line with targets set under Housing for All. A copy of Kerry County Council’s Housing Delivery Action Plan is available on its website at the following link: www.kerrycoco.ie/housing-delivery-programme/

Kerry does not have specific affordable housing target as the assessed level of affordability need is not high. However, support is available to local authorities to develop affordable purchase or cost rental housing from the Affordable Housing Fund where localised affordability needs may arise. Kerry County Council has not applied for AHF funding to date but assistance in developing schemes is available from my Department, the LGMA and the Housing Agency if required.

Supports to make refurbishing a vacant home more affordable are available also and may be of greater relevance to counties such as Kerry. The Croí Cónaithe Towns Fund provides up to €70k in grant funding to enable vacant and derelict properties to be brought back into use as homes.

The Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant supports the refurbishment of vacant and derelict properties and is making the transformation of these properties into homes an affordable option for buyers and owners. My Department publishes data on applications for the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant on its website on a quarterly basis, which includes breakdowns by local authority. See gov.ie - Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant statistics (www.gov.ie)