The Government has approved the delivery of 500 units of modular housing for homeless families across Dublin. It is intended to have the first 150 units delivered as quickly as possible in the Dublin City Council administrative area, with the City Council acting as the contracting authority. The Council is aiming to secure the delivery of an initial fast-tracked 22 of these units by mid-December, with the remaining units to follow by late Q1 2016. A further 350 units will then be provided across the four local authorities in the Dublin region through a national procurement framework overseen by the Office for Government Procurement. My Department’s role in relation to homelessness involves the provision of a national framework of policy, legislation and funding to underpin the role of housing authorities in addressing homelessness at local level. Statutory responsibility in relation to the provision of accommodation for homeless persons rests with the individual housing authorities and the purposes for which housing authorities may incur expenditure in addressing homelessness are prescribed in Section 10 of the Housing Act 1988. My Department has no function with regard to operational matters, such as sites selection, which are a matter for the relevant housing authorities. I am therefore not considering issuing a Direction for the purposes referred to in the Question.
Furthermore, targets for the delivery of units for social housing purposes, under both capital and current expenditure programmes, have been set for each local authority out to 2017.
There has been significant engagement between my Department and local authorities in finalising these targets and that engagement is continuing as progress on delivery is achieved. Full details of the targets are available on my Department’s website at the following weblink:
http://www.environ.ie/en/DevelopmentHousing/Housing/News/MainBody,41016,en.htm.
