Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 6 July 2016
26. Deputy Dara Calleary asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the scope which exists for additional expenditure on social housing by State agencies which will not impact on overall deficit targets; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19747/16]
View answerThe all-party Oireachtas Committee on Housing and Homelessness has recommended that we need 50,000 social housing units to be built. This is providing a challenge to the financing arrangements. What work has the Department done in looking at alternative off-balance sheet financing to try to meet this very necessary target?
The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Coveney, is preparing an action plan on housing, to be published shortly, which will consider the scope for using off-balance sheet mechanisms which would not impact on overall deficit targets, to supplement direct Exchequer expenditure. Since the budget of 2015, the Government, under the auspices of a group led by the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government, has been exploring the options available for using such off-balance sheet mechanisms to fund the provision of social housing without impacting on overall deficit targets. Following detailed examination of proposed options and extensive consultation with relevant State authorities, as well with a wide range of potential providers and financiers of social housing, my understanding is that no new or additional mechanism that would be capable of providing social housing on an off-balance sheet basis has been identified. However, this group is continuing with its work.
The group has also examined the scope for significantly increasing the use of any existing or known off-balance sheet models, already operating for the provision of social housing. While these models obviously have a continuing role to play in this area, the assessment is that it is very challenging to envisage how these models may be capable of being upscaled to provide the solution we require to address the shortfall in social housing provision.
Will the Minister confirm whether it is his view or his sense that there is no way of doing this off-balance sheet? There was something to this effect in the middle of his response, but he went on to say it was still being looked at. If this cannot be done off-balance sheet, given the emergency we face with the number of children in emergency accommodation, how will the Minister deal with it and give it the urgency needed and that his party colleagues have signed up to in the all-party Oireachtas committee? Will the Minister clarify that for me, please?
So did yours.
I said there were no additional mechanisms, so there are off-balance sheet mechanisms that are being used at the moment or that have been considered in the past. They are being looked at again. To answer the question the Deputy put to me, I do not believe there are any new further models that have not been considered and which are available to the State to deal with this issue. I believe that the role of the Exchequer in directly funding social housing projects and the delivery of new homes is something we will have to consider. It is something I am reviewing at the moment. The social housing strategy brought forward by the previous Administration outlined €3.2 billion of Exchequer funding available to build new social homes, and not just build them but gain them. Use would be made of rent supplement and the housing assistance payment. There are no additional ways of doing this at the moment that are apparent to me.
On the additional measures, how many houses will they supply over the next 12 to 24 months? How can we wrap up those existing measures that are off-balance sheet to respond to an emergency? The Minister mentioned in his first response that this has been looked at since last autumn. The situation has considerably worsened since then. In the context of an all-party committee that did very solid work, we need to recognise and respond to the urgency of the situation by looking at its recommendations, but on the funding and especially going off-balance sheet, that is where we need to inject the urgency.
This is being urgently looked at. The Deputy asked me what the off-balance sheet models are. He will be aware of two of them: the approved housing bodies and the so-called NARPS models, which are a special purpose vehicle of NAMA. Those are the two main models being used to provide off-balance sheet funding. As I said to the Deputy a moment ago, I do not believe that there are any new models on top of the ones I have just identified that are capable of providing large quantities of homes off-balance sheet. There will be only two ways to respond to this urgently in the short term: making use of the existing two models I referred to, which will be done off-balance sheet, or the Exchequer making a larger contribution across next year and the year after that to directly building social homes.
