Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 9 November 2023
257. Deputy Mairéad Farrell asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to provide an update on the retrofit programme for local authority housing; if any delays in the programme have been brought to his attention; if his Department has issued advice to local authorities on how to handle relevant maintenance issues in homes that have not been retrofitted yet; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49259/23]
View answerIn accordance with Section 58 of the Housing Act, 1966 local authorities are legally responsible for the management and maintenance of their housing stock. Local authorities also have a legal obligation to ensure that all of their tenanted properties are compliant with the provisions of the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations, 2019.
Notwithstanding the legal obligation on local authorities to manage and maintain their own stock, the Department does provide annual funding support to local authorities for focused programmes such as Voids/Planned Maintenance, Disabled Persons Grant and the Energy Efficient Retrofit Programme.
In 2021 a new holistic approach was applied to the Energy Efficient Retrofit Programme (EERP), designed around the Programme for Government's commitment led by the Department for the Environment, Climate and Communications that calls for the 'retrofit' of 500,000 homes to a B2 (BER)/Cost Optimal Equivalent standard by 2030, of which, approximately 36,500 are expected to be local authority owned homes, with grant funding provided by my Department for those local authority housing retrofits.
An annualised breakdown of the funding and number of properties completed by each local authority since 2013 is available at the following link:
www.gov.ie/en/publication/668c1-energy-efficiency-retrofitting-programme-expenditure-output/
In 2023, my Department announced that funding of €87 million is available for the retrofit of approximately 2,400 social homes. Local Authorities were notified of their target number of units to be retrofit earlier in the year and available funding. Work in relation to the programme is well underway with significant claims received to date and current indicators show that the original target of 2,400 retrofits is expected to be completed this year.
