Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 5 May 2021
58. Deputy Paul McAuliffe asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the status of the social, affordable and cost rental housing projects funded by his Department in Dublin 9 and 11; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23010/21]
View answerTo support the delivery of the homes that will be made available by local authorities for purchase, €310 million was made available under the Serviced Sites Fund (SSF). This fund sub-vents the cost of facilitating infrastructure and a maximum SSF funding amount of €50,000 is available per affordable home. On this basis, at least 6,200 more affordable homes, to buy or rent, can be facilitated by this measure alone. This funding is being made available in areas where local authorities have demonstrated a requirement for more affordable housing and the viability to deliver such housing from their sites. To date, funding of €198 million has been approved in principle to provide infrastructural work that will support 39 projects in 14 local authorities, delivering over 4,200 homes.
Three of the aforementioned 39 SSF projects are situated in the Dublin 9 and Dublin 11 area. Details of the number of social, affordable purchase and cost rental homes on these projects are outlined in the table below:
|
Local Authority |
SSF Project |
Social homes |
Affordable purchase |
Cost Rental |
|
Local Authority |
SSF Project |
Social homes |
Affordable purchase |
Cost Rental |
|
Dublin City Council |
Balbutcher, Ballymun |
0 |
116 |
0 |
|
Dublin City Council |
Sillogue, Ballymun |
0 |
85 |
0 |
|
Dublin City Council |
Oscar Traynor Road |
253 |
172 |
0 |
|
Total |
253 |
373 |
0 |
Dublin City Council (DCC) has advised that both the Sillogue and Balbutcher SSF projects are at the early stages of design and planning. The timeframe for the delivery of such projects entails the detailed design, consultation, planning, procurement and construction phases which, depending on the scale and scope of the project, can take a number of years.
With regard to the Oscar Traynor Road project, in light of the decision by Dublin City Councillors on 16 November 2020 not to proceed with the transfer of this land for this project, in accordance with Section 183 of the Local Government Act, 2001, I understand that the Executive is now engaging with the various parties on the Council to establish an agreed position as to how the site might be best developed. I am committed to assisting this development where possible and have made it clear that my Department is committed to supporting the Council in any way it can and using funding streams available to it.
In relation to social housing, my Department provides both capital and current funding to local authorities across a range of funding initiatives to assist them in providing homes for families and individuals.
My Department operates a number of funding programmes that assist local authorities to work in partnership with Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) to construct, purchase and lease new homes and make them available for social housing. Two such programmes that AHBs progress construction projects through are the Capital Advance Loan Facility and the Capital Assistance Scheme. AHBs are making an important contribution to social housing delivery, as envisaged under current Government policy.
To provide transparency on the new social housing projects being advanced, each quarter my Department publishes comprehensive programme level statistics on a quarterly basis on social housing delivery activity. This data, which includes a breakdown of social housing delivery across a range of mechanisms, is available to the end of Quarter 4 2020. Data for Quarter 1 2021 is currently being compiled and will be published in the coming weeks. This data is published on the statistics page of my Department’s website, at the following link: https://www.gov.ie/en/collection/6060e-overall-social-housing-provision/.
In addition to the statistical overview of activity in each local authority, a detailed Social Housing Construction Status Report (CSR) is published each quarter. The CSR provides details of individual build projects in each local authority. The most recent publication covers the period up to the end of Q4 2020 and is available at the following link:
https://rebuildingireland.ie/news/minister-obrien-publishes-2020-social-housing-statistics/
These quarterly reports provide details of the social housing construction schemes completed and those in the pipeline including those situated in the Dublin 9 and Dublin 11 areas.
A version of this file can be downloaded at the following link and used for various analysis in terms of stage of activity, location, quarter of completion, number of homes etc.https://rebuildingireland.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Final-Report.pdf.
