David Andrews
Question:11 Mr. Andrews asked the Minister for the Environment if he intends to offer rural resettlement as a housing option under social housing policy. [12902/97]
Written Answers. - Rural Resettlement.
Rural resettlement has been a social housing option for some time. Households resettling with the assistance of Rural Resettlement Ireland are able to secure housing under, or with the aid of, the voluntary housing capital assistance or rental subsidy schemes, local authority house purchase loans or shared ownership, the mortgage allowance scheme, the improvement works in lieu scheme, and a pilot resettlement mortgage loan scheme, jointly funded by the Housing Finance Agency (through the local authority), Bank of Ireland, and RRI.
In addition, under the recently launched pilot local authority rural resettlement scheme, 40 local authority housing starts are being allocated this year — 12 to County Clare and seven each to Counties Galway, Kerry, Mayo and Roscommon. In each case, these starts are additional to the normal local authority housing programmes and the houses will be let by the local authority to applicants on the RRI waiting list.