Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 May 2018
571. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government the reason an instruction was issued to local authorities that rural council houses built on sites purchased at a nominal price from the applicants' families should only be built in exceptional circumstances; the number of the circular in which the instruction was given; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20882/18]
View answerAs housing authorities, local authorities are responsible for the identification of the social housing need in their area and for the development of appropriate responses to the need identified. No instruction has issued from my Department to local authorities regarding single rural dwellings and such developments can be part of a local authority's social housing construction pipeline, where identified and prioritised by the authority.
Local authorities now have substantial pipelines of new social housing projects, ranging from larger scale developments to single rural dwellings. Details can be seen in the quarterly Social Housing Construction Status Reports published by my Department. The most recently available report sets out the position as at end quarter 4 2017 and is available on the Rebuilding Ireland website at the following link: http://rebuildingireland.ie/news/minister-murphy-publishes-social-housing-construction-status-report-q4-2017/. I am keen that all local authorities advance all projects as speedily as possible and I have assured them that funding is available to fully support their efforts in this regard.
