Written Answers Nos. 136-145
136. Deputy Terence Flanagan asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government the amount of funding that will be provided to Fingal County Council for housing adaptation grants as a result of the announcements made in budget 2014; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53464/13]
View answer137. Deputy Terence Flanagan asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government the amount of funding that will be provided to Dublin City Council for housing adaptation grants as a result of the announcements made in budget 2014; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53465/13]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 136 and 137 together.
The Abridged Estimate for my Department, published by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in Expenditure Report 2014, provides some €28.6 million in respect of the suite of Grants for Older People and People with a Disability. The Estimates provision will be supplemented by the recently announced €10 million in additional funding for this measure, giving an overall provision in 2014 of €38.6 million, some €4.3 million more than the initial Exchequer allocation in 2013. The increased allocation will facilitate the payment of more than 7,800 grants to assist older people and people with disabilities to remain at home for longer.
My Department also provides funding to local authorities for a range of measures to improve the quality and standard of the social housing stock, including the energy retrofitting of older properties and the provision of adaptations and extensions to meet the specific needs of tenants. An allocation of €300,000 was provided to Dublin City Council this year in respect of extensions and adaptations to tenanted properties. The allocation to Fingal County Council for this measure was €83,851.
I intend to announce details of the capital allocations under both measures to individual local authorities early in 2014.
138. Deputy Anthony Lawlor asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if he will provide an update on the upgrading of the sewerage treatment plant in Osberstown, Naas, County Kildare. [53479/13]
View answerThe Upper Liffey Valley Sewerage Scheme (Osberstown Wastewater Treatment Plant Upgrade Contract) is included in my Department’s Water Services Investment Programme 2010 – 2013 as a scheme to start during the lifetime of the Programme.
In June 2013 I approved Kildare County Council’s proposals to commence the procurement process for increasing the capacity of the treatment plant from 80,000 population equivalent (p.e.) to 130,000 p.e. I understand that the closing date for submission of tenders has passed and that the Council is assessing the tenders received with a view to getting work underway as early as possible in 2014.
139. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government further to Parliamentary Question No. 27 of 5 December 2013, if he will provide a breakdown, based on each local authority administrative area, of the locations of the 25,731 units of accommodation which were provided by approved housing bodies following approval by his Department under its capital funding schemes up to the end of 2012. [53484/13]
View answerMy Department’s role in relation to the voluntary housing capital funding schemes relates primarily to the provision of funds to support the annual construction and housing acquisitions programmes by the sector. It is a matter for the relevant housing authority to ensure compliance with the terms and conditions of the schemes, and to have appropriate oversight and liaison arrangements in place for the effective administration of the schemes and for ensuring that the investment in voluntary housing is safeguarded.
At the end of 2012 a total of 25,371 units of accommodation had been provided by approved voluntary and co-operative housing bodies under my Department’s capital funding schemes since the inception of the Capital Assistance Scheme (CAS) in 1984 and the Capital Loan and Subsidy Scheme (CLSS) in 1992.
A breakdown of the number of house completions on a county basis is not readily available for the period 1984 to 1992. Information in respect of individual CAS projects completed over that period is held on file in hard copy format only and disaggregated on the basis of the relevant approved housing body. Compilation on a county basis would require archived files to be retrieved from off-site storage facilities and would involve an inordinate amount of time and resources.
Details of overall numbers of units provided across all local authorities under the CAS scheme from its inception in 1984 to 1992, together with details of the numbers of units provided under the CAS and CLSS on a county basis from 1993 to end 2012, are set out in the following table:
|
County |
No. of Units CAS 1984-2012 |
No. of Units CLSS 1993 - 2012 |
|
CAS only 1984 - 1992 |
2,691 |
|
|
CAS and CLSS 1993-2012 |
||
|
Carlow |
187 |
254 |
|
Cavan |
125 |
48 |
|
Clare |
203 |
131 |
|
Cork |
844 |
585 |
|
Donegal |
533 |
420 |
|
Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown |
543 |
372 |
|
Fingal |
381 |
598 |
|
Galway |
359 |
171 |
|
Kerry |
402 |
169 |
|
Kildare |
366 |
469 |
|
Kilkenny |
437 |
137 |
|
Laois |
212 |
271 |
|
Leitrim |
64 |
44 |
|
Limerick |
572 |
101 |
|
Longford |
112 |
173 |
|
Louth |
190 |
694 |
|
Mayo |
409 |
193 |
|
Meath |
206 |
180 |
|
Monaghan |
211 |
76 |
|
Offaly |
133 |
270 |
|
Roscommon |
98 |
25 |
|
Sligo |
237 |
237 |
|
South Dublin |
263 |
992 |
|
Tipperary N.R. |
233 |
132 |
|
Tipperary S.R. |
262 |
390 |
|
Waterford |
125 |
139 |
|
Westmeath |
202 |
0 |
|
Wexford |
230 |
284 |
|
Wicklow |
265 |
85 |
|
City Councils |
||
|
Cork |
656 |
249 |
|
Dublin |
2,465 |
1651 |
|
Galway |
292 |
182 |
|
Limerick |
335 |
99 |
|
Waterford |
419 |
288 |
|
TOTALS |
15,262 |
10,109 |
140. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if he will allow a seamless transfer of applications for funding under the current Leader programme, where funding is unavailable to the new programme 2014-2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53486/13]
View answerThe Rural Development Programmes are implemented through a strict regulatory regime which is set by the European Commission. Each Programming period has specific Commission and Council Regulations, to which the Programme must adhere, and these include the priorities and eligibility criteria for the Programme. These may change from one Programming period to the next.
Applications under the current Programme are made on foot of a local development strategy for the relevant area. When the 2014-2020 Programme commences my Department will be issuing a call for new local development strategies and in line with Putting People First – An Action Plan for Local Government the new delivery model will be aligned with local government.
Based on all of these factors, I do not expect applications under the current Programme to be automatically transferrable to the 2014-2020 Programme as the criteria, priorities and delivery mechanisms may have changed.
141. Deputy Jack Wall asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if, through his Department or any of the State agencies funded by his Department funding has been supplied to a facility (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53506/13]
View answerWithout having further details on the facility, I am not in a position to determine whether any funding has been made available to it under any of my Department’s Programmes.
142. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if it is intended to extend the estate management powers of local authorities under the Housing Acts, 1966 to 2009, to include tenancies supported by rent supplement or housing benefit. [53510/13]
View answer143. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if it is intended to extend the estate management powers of local authorities under the Housing Acts, 1966 to 2009, to include tenancies acquired under the rental accommodation scheme where there is currently no statutory basis for tenant and estate management protocols and programmes of local authorities. [53511/13]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 142 and 143 together.
Housing authorities have no function in relation to the rent supplement scheme, which is operated by the Department of Social Protection. Insofar as the rental accommodation scheme (RAS) and the proposed scheme of housing assistance payments (HAP) are concerned, responsibility for estate management in relation to private rented accommodation, including RAS and HAP dwellings, rests with the landlord concerned, who has power under the Residential Tenancies Act 2004 to terminate a tenancy where the tenant is engaging in, or allowing others to engage in, anti-social behaviour. Nonetheless, housing authorities have certain powers set out below to address anti-social behaviour in RAS accommodation provided under the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 and it is intended that forthcoming legislation will include powers for housing authorities to address anti-social behaviour in HAP accommodation.
Under section 14 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1997, housing authorities will have power to refuse to allocate, or to defer the allocation of, dwellings the subject of rental accommodation availability agreements under Chapter 4 of Part 2 of the 2009 Act to persons engaged in anti-social behaviour or in the interest of good estate management. Under that Chapter, a housing authority may also notify the landlord of a dwelling the subject of a rental accommodation availability agreement that the tenant is or was engaged in anti-social behaviour, in which case the landlord is obliged to terminate the tenancy in accordance with the Residential Tenancies Act 2004. Commencement of Chapter 4 of the 2009 Act is dependent on commencement of section 31 of the 2009 Act relating to local authority rent schemes, a process which, following the enactment of the Housing (Amendment Act ) 2013, I will put in train shortly.
144. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government further to Parliamentary Question No. 27 of 5 December 2013, if his Department has a means of measuring engagement of approved housing bodies with the newly developed voluntary regulation code, Building for the Future, published on 15 July 2013. [53513/13]
View answer145. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government further to Parliamentary Question No. 27 of 5 December 2013, if the proposed statutory regulation of approved housing bodies will include oversight of service level agreements between approved housing bodies and local authorities in respect of the management and maintenance of social housing units which may be either leased or owned by the relevant authority. [53514/13]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 144 and 145 together.
The Government’s Housing Policy Statement of June 2011 acknowledged the capacity and track record of the voluntary and cooperative housing sector and placed approved housing bodies (AHBs) at the heart of its vision for social housing provision. In July 2013 Building for the Future, a voluntary regulation code, was published as an important step towards a statutory regulatory framework. My Department, together with the Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency and the Housing Finance Agency, is now working with the sector to develop a set of financial criteria to further enhance its capacity to contribute to housing provision.
Development of the code was marked by close engagement with representatives of the sector. To date, a total of 76 organisations have signed up to the code, including 5 of the larger housing bodies. The voluntary regulation code is available on my Department’s website www.environ.ie.
Details on the content of the proposed statutory regulation are not, at this stage, developed. However, the implementation of the voluntary regulatory code in the coming months will be a valuable source of information as to the scope and final content of the proposed statutory regulation to be developed by 2016. In addition, there will be widespread consultation, in the normal way, during the development of the new legal framework.
