Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 25 September 2024
56. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of sanctions sought in 2024 by local authorities for tenant-in-situ acquisitions above the 50% of their allocation, in tabular form. [38099/24]
View answer57. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to confirm that with respect to the tenant-in-situ scheme, for acquisitions that are above the local authority allocation plus 50%, if advance approval needs to be obtained from his Department, as set out in Guidance for 2024 Social Housing Acquisitions issued by the Department to local authorities in June 2024. [38100/24]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 56 and 57 together.
Under Housing for All, the Government will deliver 47,600 new build social homes and 3,500 social homes through long-term leasing in the period 2022-2026. Our clear focus is to increase the stock of social housing through new build projects delivered by local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs).
Social Housing is delivered through a range of local authority and Approved Housing Body (AHB) delivery programmes across the build, acquisition and leasing delivery streams.
For 2023, the Government agreed that there would be increased provision for social housing acquisitions and my Department provided funding for local authorities to acquire at least 1,500 social homes. The additional acquisitions have primarily focused on properties where a tenant is in receipt of social housing supports and has received a Notice of Termination due to the landlord’s intention to sell the property. My Department issued a circular in March 2023, setting out details of these arrangements.
For 2024, Government has again agreed to an increased provision to acquire 1,500 social homes with the primary focus on properties where a tenant in receipt of social housing supports has received a Notice of Termination due to the landlord’s intention to sell the property.
Each local authority has been provided with a provisional allocation for social housing acquisitions in 2024. An increased headroom of 50%, in addition to this initial allocation, has been applied to enable local authorities to acquire homes within these parameters under delegated sanction. Acquisitions above this headroom amount are subject sanction requests which are dealt with expeditiously.
To date 13 local authorities have sought sanction to exceed the allocation with each request subsequently being approved. The number of sanction requests is detailed below:
|
Local Authority |
Number of Applications |
|
Carlow Total |
25 |
|
Cork City Total |
15 |
|
Galway City Total |
8 |
|
Kildare Total |
34 |
|
Kilkenny Total |
1 |
|
Longford Total |
3 |
|
Meath Total |
5 |
|
Monaghan Total |
1 |
|
SDCC Total |
1 |
|
Sligo Total |
4 |
|
Tipperary Total |
13 |
|
Westmeath Total |
6 |
|
Wexford Total |
1 |
|
Grand Total |
117 |
My Department publishes comprehensive programme level statistics on a quarterly basis on social and affordable housing delivery activity by local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs) in each local authority, including completed acquisitions. From 2023, this data includes a breakdown of acquisitions completed by each local authority where a Notice of Termination issued to a tenant and is available, for all local authorities, to the end of Quarter 1 2024 on the statistics page of my Department’s website at the following link: www.gov.ie/en/collection/6060e-overall-social-housing-provision/.
