Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 1 December 2022
40. Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the engagement that his Department has had with local county councils to ensure that local authority housing departments are properly staffed and resourced; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56907/22]
View answerHousing for All is the Government’s plan to increase the supply of housing to an average of 33,000 per year over the next decade. Housing for All is supported by an investment package of over €4bn per annum, through an overall combination of €12bn in direct Exchequer funding, €3.5bn in funding through the Land Development Agency and €5bn funding through the Housing Finance Agency. The Government plans to deliver more than 90,000 social homes to 2030, with a focus on the social housing build programme, with a target to reach delivery of more than 9,500 new-build homes on average each year for the next five years to 2026.
Housing for All also includes a commitment to strengthen the capacity of local authorities to initiate, design, plan, develop and manage housing projects. Significant work has been undertaken to identify the additional staff resources required by local authorities to deliver the social housing targets set out in Housing for All. During 2021, the Housing Delivery Coordination Office (HDCO) engaged with each local authority to identify their additional staff requirements to deliver social housing. Following this engagement, my Department approved funding for over 250 housing posts in local authorities nationally to address social housing delivery.
With the support of the HDCO, the Department undertook a review this year in relation to the requirements for affordable housing staff resources, focusing on local authorities with an identified affordability constraint. Key considerations in this review included the type of structure (administrative/professional staff) necessary to deliver affordable housing, scale of delivery programmes and alignment with the additional supports already provided for social housing delivery earlier in 2022.
Following on-going engagement and sanction from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, an initial tranche of 69 posts have now been approved and communicated to each of the respective local authorities who are now in the process of procuring same as applicable. This is a key requirement to underpin affordable housing delivery and ensuring the required structures are in place to enable affordable housing delivery as a matter of priority. The Department and the HDCO will be monitoring this programme further to a review of any additional supports being examined in 2023.
