Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 16 July 2015
16. Deputy Terence Flanagan asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if he will provide an update on the provision of new social housing in Dublin; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28717/15]
View answerIn April 2015, I announced targets and provisional funding allocations out to 2017 for the delivery of social housing for all local authorities, including a target for Dublin of 6,849 units. This target will be supported by €507m of investment in a combination of building, buying and leasing schemes.
The Dublin Social Housing Delivery Taskforce has been established under the Government's Social Housing Strategy published in November 2014 and is carrying out its role in driving the delivery of social housing across the four Dublin local authorities. I announced a major social housing construction programme on 5 May 2015, which included 566 new units across the four Dublin authorities, at a cost of over €116m. This was the first phase of direct-build projects to be announced under the Social Housing Strategy and further announcements will be made shortly. The targets for social housing in Dublin also include returning 344 vacant units to productive use in 2015.
Additional social housing units for the Dublin area are also targeted under both the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) and the Social Housing Current Expenditure Programme. In relation to the latter, where a local authority can exceed its target, it should be possible to fund additional units with the agreement of the Department.
The Social Housing Strategy also provides for a public private partnership programme to invest €300 million in social housing. Work on identifying sites is currently underway and it is intended that the first bundle of PPP sites will have a focus on delivery in the Greater Dublin area.
