Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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267. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he is satisfied at the adequacy of existing tenant in situ regulations; and his plans to revise the ACG in respect of new acquisitions. [38803/24]

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).

Social Housing is delivered through a range of local authority and Approved Housing Body (AHB) delivery programmes across the build acquisition and lease delivery streams.

For 2023 and 2024, the Government agreed that there would be increased provision for social housing acquisitions and my Department provided funding for local authorities to acquire 1,500 social homes. The additional acquisitions have primarily focused on properties where a tenant is in receipt of social housing supports and has received a Notice of Termination due to the landlord’s intention to sell the property. My Department issued a circular letter in March 2024, setting out details of these arrangements.

Each local authority has been provided with a provisional allocation for social housing acquisitions in 2024 with additional headroom of 50% on the allocation being available under delegated sanction. Additional guidance in this regard issued to local authorities in June.

Local authorities have delegated sanction in relation to acquisitions within their allocation + 50%, subject to those acquisitions being within Acquisition Cost Guidelines (ACGs) issued by my Department. Local authorities regularly acquire properties that require repairs, however the cost of acquiring the property and relevant refurbishment costs must fall within the ACGs. An independent valuation must also be obtained for each acquisition, in line with established practice for local authorities for social housing acquisitions. The current Acquisition Cost Guidelines were updated and issued to local authorities in April 2024. These guidelines are reviewed and updated as appropriate by my Department on a periodic basis.

The ACGs provide cost guidelines for the acquisition by housing authorities, of second-hand properties for the provision of social housing. These guidelines reference lower and upper cost ranges, along with an average/benchmark cost, which is representative of the average range of current (at the time of issue) prices across the local authority area.

It is a matter for individual local authorities to identify suitable acquisitions in line with local circumstances and their social housing allocations policy. Local authorities take appropriate steps to ensure that their first response will be to support households to try to prevent homelessness in cases where tenants have been served with a notice of termination by their landlord.