Social and Affordable Housing.

Wednesday, 19 May 2004

Questions (205)

Ciarán Cuffe

Question:

205 Mr. Cuffe asked the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the annual national development plan’s targets for the completion of social housing in the voluntary and local authority sector; and the annual breakdown of progress to date in meeting same. [14677/04]

View answer

Written answers

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (Mr. N. Ahern)

The targets and progress for local authority housing and voluntary housing completions in each year of the NDP are as follows:

Local Authority and Voluntary Housing Programme Table.

	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	Total
NDP Target Completions	5,000	6,250	7,700	8,650	9,350	9,150	9,500	55,600
NDP Actual Completions	4,158	6,217	6,114	6,250
NDP Target Funding €m	505.61	719.64	827.7	893.42	990	996.11	1,079.48	6,011.96
NDP Actual Funding €m	526.04	824.77	972.64	926.7

Output levels for social housing by the local authority and voluntary sector have been less than anticipated in the NDP targets. However, record levels of completions have been achieved over the period of the plan. Local authority housing output was maintained at a high level and voluntary housing output continues to grow significantly. The shortfall in achieving output targets can generally be attributed to higher than anticipated construction costs.

The needs of in excess of 46,600 households were met by a range of social and affordable housing measures between 2000 and 2003. I anticipate that the needs of a further 13,000 household will be met in 2004. Investment under the NDP's housing aspect is ahead of its forecast with local authority housing running at 111% and voluntary housing running at 108%.