Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 23 October 2013
4. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if he will provide a breakdown by county of the 4,400 new social housing units due to be operational in 2014 as announced in budget 2014; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44945/13]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Abridged Estimate for my Department, published by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in the expenditure report for 2014, provides €525.8 million in respect of the housing programme. These resources have been supplemented by a further €50 million announced in the budget to fund infrastructural investment, primarily in the housing area. When taken in conjunction, funding for housing is, in effect, maintained at 2013 levels.
Meeting social housing need within the available resources will necessitate smarter and more innovative approaches to maximise output. In 2014, I will continue to focus the available resources towards the most vulnerable and disadvantaged sectors of the community. Approved housing bodies will play a key role in 2014 in the delivery of social housing, in particular in their capacity to attract external financial investment.
More than 4,100 units will be provided for social housing in 2014, through leasing and existing capital programmes. This includes the continued transfer of NAMA units, completion of existing building and acquisition programmes, transfers under the rental accommodation scheme and completion of mortgage-to-rent arrangements.
Furthermore, an additional €30 million being invested in local authority housing will facilitate the construction of new infill developments in areas with the highest demand for social housing, it will bring long-term vacant units back into social use and will result in producing up to 500 new homes for families. A further €10 million will transform the most difficult unfinished housing estates and result in enhanced quality of life for families. Housing adaptation grants will also benefit by €10 million and this will assist older people and people with disabilities to remain at home for longer. In order to ensure continued progress towards the achievement of the 2016 target of ending long-term homelessness, the homeless budget is being maintained at €45 million. A new social impact investment initiative will also see more than 130 homeless families move out of private emergency accommodation and into sustainable long-term tenancies.
These housing schemes operated by my Department are demand led and a detailed county breakdown will only be available at year end. In respect of the new and refined schemes, I intend to announce fuller details of these in the coming months, taking into consideration the needs and demands of housing authorities.
I thank the Minister of State for her response and I look forward to reading it in detail in order to ascertain exactly what information is contained within it. The housing situation is fast becoming a major crisis, with 100,000 on waiting lists throughout the country. In his budgetary speech, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform stated that he was allocating an extra €30 million from the sale of the national lottery towards housing projects under the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. However, proposed capital expenditure for next year in the budgetary booklet contains a fall of €40 million. Is it just a €10 million deficit for the coming year? The Minister of State has stated that she has maintained figures, so is it basically a retention of what we achieved last year? I am a little confused, so perhaps the Minister of State might clarify the issue.
The overall housing budget will remain more or less as it was last year, but that is across different functions. The extra €30 million will be added onto the capital budget for construction, which had been steadily dropping over the past few years. All capital budgets have been declining significantly but we expect to have an additional 500 new units from the construction stimulus package. Part of that will be in construction and the Deputy will know that it takes some time to build new houses. Part of it will be bringing voids back into use. We have information from various local authorities that they have voids which need significant work. There was a previous scheme which addressed some of the voids, but others require significant work, so we intend to use a large portion of that money to bring those back into use.
Basically what the Minister of State is saying is that despite the fanfare attached to the announcement on budget day, the figures remain much the same as they were last year, and there is no great increase as a dividend from the sale of the national lottery licence to which the Minister of State can attest. The money just brings the figures up to much the same rate as last year.
There was a cut that the Deputy's own government had agreed year by year-----
Exactly. The Minister of State has given me the clarification I required. What procedures are in place for local authorities to make applications, based on this new figure that the Minister of State claims is supplementary to the initial annual Estimate? When can local authorities be expected to make applications for this? Is the extra €10 million, which the Minister of State mentioned in respect of housing aid for the elderly and so on, over and above what had already been committed? Can local authorities also expect a dividend, given that this House was informed of such a dividend on budget day?
There was an agreement made by the Deputy's party, when it was in government, that the capital budgets would be cut gradually over a period of five years, and they were built into our figures over the last three years, unfortunately including cuts for this year, which I regret very much and which most Deputies have raised here over the year. There will be some increase in the private house grants for next year from this year. The €30 million will be on top of the original intended allocation, in accordance with the agreement that was made five years ago in respect of the cuts in capital allowances, but it does represent extra money. We have done a trawl of local authorities already to see whether they have projects that are ready to go and in which construction can begin, because we want to spend the money next year. We do not want long-term plans. We are very confident that the local authorities will be able to spend money in the next year. They will already be aware that we are coming to them and asking them for projects.
So the Minister of State can give me the content of the initial question as to where these 4,400 units will be constructed throughout the country.
They will not all be constructed. Some of them are coming from a variety of ways, as I said in my initial reply.
