Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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1589. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government whether his Department has made any funding available to local authorities to appoint vacancy officers to manage social housing voids; and if so, how much funding for each local authority. [42962/25]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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1590. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of vacancy officers employed by local authorities nationwide, broken down by local authority. [42963/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1589 and 1590 together.

Addressing vacancy and making efficient use of existing housing stock is a key priority for Government, as set out in Pathway 4 of Housing for All.

The Vacant Homes Action Plan, published in January 2023, built on Pathway 4 and set out the various actions that were being pursued to return vacant properties back into use as homes. In March I published the 2025 Progress Report which shows the significant progress that is being made and it is available on my Department's website at the following link: www.gov.ie/en/publication/df86c-vacant-homes-action-plan-2023-2026/

My Department provides funding of €60,000 per annum to support each local authority's Vacant Homes Office, including a Vacant Homes Officer (VHO), this was increased from €50,000 in 2022. This supports the commitment in Housing for All to ensure that the VHO role in each local authority is fulltime. The provision of central funding reinforces the capacity of local authorities, including through the important role of VHOs, to ensure a dedicated focus on tackling vacancy and dereliction.

Since 2023, all 31 local authorities have a full-time VHO in place. The VHOs play a vital role in delivering and advancing measures to tackle vacancy and dereliction in each local authority. This work involves engaging with the owners of vacant and derelict properties and promoting uptake of supports such as the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant, Repair and Leasing Scheme, as well as other initiatives such as the Planning regulations which exempt certain vacant commercial premises from requiring planning permission to change to residential purposes.

VHOs also coordinate with colleagues across the local authority in Planning, Derelict Sites, Town Regeneration and other teams in their local authority with the overarching objective of tackling private residential vacancy. They are not engaged in managing the local authority's housing stock.

The management and maintenance of local authority housing stock, including pre-letting repairs to vacant properties, the implementation of a planned maintenance programme and carrying out of responsive repairs, are matters for each individual local authority under Section 58 of the Housing Act 1966. Local authorities also have a legal obligation to ensure that all of their tenanted properties are compliant with the provisions of the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations, 2019.

Notwithstanding the legal obligation on local authorities, my Department provides annual funding to support the turnaround and re-let of vacant local authority homes under the Voids Programme. Although not related to staffing requirements, the 2025 Programme will provide funding of €31 million to local authorities to support the refurbishment and re-letting of a minimum of 1,900 homes, and continue the transition from a reactive, voids approach to a Planned Maintenance approach.

Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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1591. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of social housing acquisitions that have been bought to date in 2025, with a breakdown by local authority and acquisition type tenant-in-situ, housing first, vacant homeless, and so no; and an average cost, by local authority. [42988/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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My Department publishes comprehensive programme-level statistics on a quarterly basis on social and affordable housing delivery activity by local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) in each local authority including data on social homes acquired where tenants had been issued a Notice of Termination. This data is available to the end of Q1 2025 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/

While Housing First or vacant homeless are not delivery streams for the acquisition programme, in Q1 2025 42 new Housing First tenancies commenced. A total of 866 tenancies have been established under the current National Implementation Plan and 1,060 individuals are currently in a Housing First tenancy. Both 2023 and 2024 saw the tenancy targets being met and the programme remains on course to meet its overall target of 1,319 tenancies by the end of 2026. The Programme for Government, Securing Ireland’s Future, commits to creating 2,000 Housing First tenancies to help eliminate long term homelessness.

The average cost of social housing acquisitions in 2025 is currently €276,052. This figure is calculated using the financial information currently available to my Department, however data is subject to revision as claims are received from local authorities and accounts are finalised.