Vol. 512 No. 8
89 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the extent to which the local authority housing waiting list has grown in the past four years; the number of houses the local authorities, through his Department, expects to build in the next four years; the number by which the local authority housing list is expected to grow in the next four years and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27495/99]
Statutory assessments of local authority housing needs are generally carried out at three rather than four year intervals. The most recent statutory assessments of local authority housing needs were carried out at 29 March 1996 and 31 March 1999 and the results indicated a total of 39,176 households in need of local authority housing in March 1999, compared with 27,427 in March 1996.
Local authorities have been authorised to build or acquire a total of 22,000 houses under the four year multi-annual housing programme 2000-3. The local authority housing programme is, of course, only one of a range of ways in which the needs of households on the local authority waiting lists may appropriately be met. I am confident that the enhanced multi-annual local authority housing programme, together with the output from the complementary social housing measures and vacancies occurring in the existing stock, will enable the housing needs of over 50,000 households to be catered for over the next four years.
I am very conscious of the level of social housing need and it is not my expectation that the numbers on the local authority housing lists will grow over the next four years.
90 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the number of affordable housing units provided by the various local authorities in accordance with his affordable housing initiative in the course of the past 12 months and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27496/99]
The affordable housing scheme involves the provision by local authorities of additional new houses specifically for low income house purchasers on land provided by the local authorities. On 8 April 1999 all housing authorities were requested to assess the extent to which the new affordable housing scheme could appropriately be used in their areas and to formulate proposals for specific developments which should be brought to construction at the earliest possible date.
