Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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88. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government to outline his plans to further strengthen the capacity of local authorities to increase delivery of social housing, as stated in the strategic investment priorities of the National Development Plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18087/24]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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189. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he is planning any further spending on capacity and resources for local authorities to tackle vacancy and dereliction of properties and to increase the stock of social and affordable housing as indicated in the NDP; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16221/24]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 88 and 189 together.

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 and is the first multi-annual fully funded housing plan in the history of the State. The annual targets include the delivery of 90,000 new social homes and 36,000 new affordable purchase homes and 18,000 cost rental homes. The Plan is supported by an investment package of over €4 billion per annum, through an overall combination of €12 billion in direct Exchequer funding, €3.5 billion investment through the Land Development Agency (LDA) and €5 billion lending through the Housing Finance Agency (HFA).

Budget 2024 provided for continued record investment in Housing with €4.25 billion in Exchequer funding for the delivery of housing programmes, comprising capital funding of €2.6 billion and current funding of €1.5 billion. The Capital provision will be supplemented by LDA investment and HFA lending resulting in an overall capital provision of over €5 billion in 2024.

Housing for All includes a commitment to strengthen the capacity of local authorities to initiate, design, plan, develop and manage housing projects.

Extensive work was undertaken in 2021 to identify the additional staff resources required by local authorities to deliver the social housing targets set out in Housing for All and, in December 2021, I approved funding for 250 housing posts in local authorities nationally to support social housing delivery.

Furthermore, in order to help ramp up the delivery of affordable housing throughout the country, I have recently approved 71.5 new specialist and administrative posts across 27 local authorities. This is in addition to 69 specialist and administrative staff approved in 2022. The approval of these additional professional expert roles, alongside administrative delivery teams, increases the total complement to 140.5 staff in local authorities dedicated to delivering affordable housing. These new posts will be solely dedicated to affordable housing delivery and will ensure the required expertise is in place to deliver the current robust pipeline of affordable homes and ensure local authorities possess increased capacity to deliver on same.

In relation to vacancy, funding has been made available to local authorities to support the work of a Vacant Homes Office, including a Vacant Homes Officer (VHO), with the level of funding increased from €50,000 to €60,000 per annum, from mid-2022. All 31 local authorities now have a full time, dedicated VHO in place.

In acknowledgement of the administrative overheads local authorities experience in managing the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant and the Ready to Build Scheme, my Department is providing initial support to each local authority in respect of processing applications. This support is linked to the number of applications received with €60,000 provided where up to 50 applications have been received; an additional €60,000 where 51 to 100 applications are received and an additional €60,000 where over 100 applications are received by the local authority.