Local authorities indicated to my Department that they would require some €1 billion to meet what they estimated to be their funding requirements this year for their housing construction programmes. My Department considers that this overstates requirements for the current year, and the total amount of capital funding available this year to allocate to local authorities for their housing construction programmes was €700 million. While it follows that most local authorities did not receive the full amount requested by them, I am nonetheless confident that substantial progress on local authority housing programmes is being supported by these allocations.
Each local authority has been allocated a number of housing starts which they can construct over the years 2000 to 2004 under the four year multi-annual housing construction programme designed to provide 25,000 housing starts during the period. The principal reason for the introduction of a four year multi-annual approach, which replaced the annual allocation of starts, was to allow local authorities more scope to plan the implementation of their housing programmes. Having regard to the general Exchequer financial position, progress to the end of 2002 in the delivery of the four year programme of starts is satisfactory with some 16,300 starts achieved during the three year period 2000 to 2003.
