Joan Collins
Question:24. Deputy Joan Collins asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government the details of local authority houses built in 2018 in each local authority. [8368/19]
View answerWednesday, 20 February 2019
Questions (24)
Oral answers (6 contributions)
I wish to know the details of local authority houses built in 2018 in each local authority area. I raise this area specifically because it is the only one in which we have security of tenure. The housing assistance payment does not give tenants security of tenure. House-building and acquisitions will, as will the cost-rental model, I hope.
Last year, the Minister announced that 7,000 homes had been built. At a meeting in Cork, it transpired the number was much lower, amounting to only 700 approximately. This year, the Minister is saying the number will be 8,400. I would like the details on this if the Minister can provide them.
I thank the Deputy for the question.
Details on the 2018 social housing output against target, broken down by local authority area, have just been published on the statistics page of my Department's website, honouring the commitment I made last year to publish annual targets and full delivery details. They should have been published this morning. I published the high-level targets last week. The reason for the delay was that we were waiting for the chairperson of a new task force we are establishing in Galway for housing delivery to confirm he or she would take on the role. The person confirmed only this morning. On confirmation, I was able to publish the detailed reports, in addition to the new measure we are taking in Galway city and county.
Overall, a very strong performance was achieved by comparison with the national target for the year. Regarding new-build activity in 2018, some 4,251 additional social homes were delivered across the 31 local authority areas. This included delivery under a range of schemes, either led directly by local authorities or in partnership with approved housing bodies. Of the 4,251 new homes provided, 2,022 were delivered by local authorities, 1,388 were delivered by approved housing bodies and 841 came through Part V agreements. Overall, the new-build social housing delivery last year, while marginally below target, was up 85% on 2017, and was more than eight times higher than in 2015, the year before Rebuilding Ireland was introduced.
My Department and I are committed to the accelerated delivery of all social housing projects and will continue to work with all local authorities and approved housing bodies to ensure that quality and value for money projects are delivered efficiently and effectively. This is evident from the significant increase in new-build social housing activity in 2018 and the further significant increase targeted for this year.
I apologise for the Deputy not having the table in front of her. It should be published now. It shows each local authority area and each of the delivery streams in each local authority. It shows performance against the targets I set in January of last year in terms of local authority build, approved housing authority build, Part V developments, leasing, acquisition, and HAP and RAS. People can see the exact breakdown in respect of the 27,000 new households that were supported last year by the taxpayer.
I tabled the question because we had not seen those figures. The Minister is saying they were released this morning. The Minister's building target in Dublin city last year was 1,045 local authority houses. Has this number been built? The target for Galway city was 96 local authority houses. Considering that none was built the previous year, it would be interesting to know whether the target of 96 was reached.
I have a breakdown of all the local authority target build figures for 2018 so we will be able to compare these with the numbers actually built. I look forward to looking at and investigating the figures published today.
It is a rather large table so it is difficult to elaborate on it. The Deputy asked what Dublin City Council provided over the course of 2018. There were 264 new builds by the local authority. There were 282 new builds in partnership with the housing bodies. There were 104 delivered through Part V. Therefore, the total new build figure was 650 across the three streams. There were 200 done in voids. More voids were done than that but we decided to cap the voids at 560, as per the Rebuilding Ireland plan. Three times as many voids were done across the local authority area. That brings the total local authority build in Dublin city to 850. In addition, 265 homes were acquired by the city council and 280 by housing bodies in the area, bringing the acquisition total to 545. If I am reading the table correctly, 61 homes were leased.
That brings the total supports provided in Dublin City Council, including housing assistance payment and the rental accommodation scheme, to a little less than 4,000. The council achieved 81% of its build target, or 83% if one includes acquisitions and leasing. This is the kind of breakdown I proposed delivering at the end of 2018 such that Members can examine the information and see what is working and what is not. It is available for every local authority area.
We will drill down into those figures. The Minister stated there were 264 new builds by the local authority and 282 by housing bodies, in addition to Part V provision, giving a total of 650 new builds, with the remainder being acquisitions and leasing and so on. The target for last year was 1,045, indicating that less than 81% of the target was reached. Will those targets not being met impact on the overall figure for local authority builds up to 2021 to which the Government has committed?
According to my figures, the total build for Dublin City Council is 850 properties, while the target was 1,045. The council did not reach the target, achieving a little more than 80%. We must be fair to local authorities. For many years, the challenge they were facing was not trying to build housing but, rather, dealing with unfinished housing estates and land they bought that had significant debt on it because of the way the economy went after 2008 and 2009. They have been building their resources over several years and we are now seeing significant improvements. Dublin City Council did not hit its target but it made significant improvement on what it achieved in 2015 and 2017. Some local authorities are exceeding their targets, which is welcome.
A task force is being brought in for Galway city and county because the councils there are not performing as we want them to. Difficulties may exist between county boundary areas, as was the case in Cork. It is hoped that the expertise which brought about a greater than targeted increase in delivery in Cork will now be of assistance in Galway. Across all local authority areas, 96% of the national target was hit. Some local authorities are exceeding their targets, others are coming in on target and others are not meeting targets. My responsibility as Minister is to help local authorities which are not reaching their targets and see what extra resources we can provide to get them performing as well as other local authorities. There has been an eightfold increase in build since the year before Rebuilding Ireland. I congratulate local authorities on that significant achievement.