Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 31 January 2017
295. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the average relet time for vacant local authority housing in 2016 and in each of the past three years, by local authority; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4030/17]
View answerStatistics on the average re-letting times for local authority social housing are gathered by the National Oversight and Audit Commission and are set out by local authority in their report on Performance Indicators in Local Authorities. These statistics are available for both 2014 and 2015 at the following links: http://noac.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/NOAC-Performance-Indicators-Report-2014.pdf and http://noac.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2015-PI-Report.pdf .
The statistics as gathered by the National Oversight and Audit Commission illustrate the average time from date of vacation of a social house to the date when a new tenancy has commenced. This includes the time taken to re-let a house and does not, therefore, separately capture the time from a house being vacated to when necessary repairs are complete.
Feedback from local authorities is that the time taken by them to turn around vacant social houses can vary significantly from property to property, depending on the level of refurbishment required in each individual case. Additionally, the funding that my Department provides to local authorities to remediate certain social housing includes support for the energy retrofitting of the property. While this may add to the work required to remediate a house, it is an important upgrade to the property which brings notable fuel efficiency advantages to the incoming tenant.
