I propose to take Questions Nos. 359 and 360 together.
The provision of social housing is carried out through a range of delivery methods, including construction, acquisition, leasing and other approaches, which allow local authorities to respond flexibly to meet local demand and operate within local property circumstances.
The cost for the capital-funded construction of a new social housing unit varies widely, depending on the type of housing unit and the location, but a reasonable average for this per unit cost is €205,000. Therefore the cost of building 20,000 new social housing units would be approximately €4.1 billion and 100,000 houses would be approximately €20.5 billion. For a building programme spread over a number of years, the costs could alter depending on the trends in construction costs over that time.
In relation to the cost of supporting households in the private rented sector, my Department funds the implementation of a range of social housing programmes delivered at local authority level. The Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) directly supports households with the cost of meeting their long-term housing need in the rented sector. Under HAP, local authorities will make payments, subject to rent limits, on behalf of the HAP recipient directly to the landlord in respect of rent. The HAP recipient will then pay a rent contribution to the local authority. The rent contribution is a differential rent – that is, a rent set by the local authority based on income and the ability to pay. The cost of providing such support ranges significantly depending on the location of the property and the household type. Taking the total number of HAP supported households at year end and the full cost of the scheme in 2015 (which includes the cost of payments to landlords as well as the administration of the scheme at local authority level, and the transactional shared service centre operated by Limerick City and County Council), the average annual cost per unit would be €2,537. However, this is not an accurate reflection of the average cost per unit when account is taken of the phased introduction of units over the course of the year. A better measure is the annualised cost of the average monthly rent paid to landlords in 2015, which is estimated as €6,804. The Rent Supplement scheme operated by the Department of Social Protection also supports households with the cost of meeting their housing needs in the rented sector. Information in relation to the cost of the Rent Supplement scheme is a matter for my colleague, the Minister for Social Protection.
The latest (2014) estimated average rental income per annum per social house managed by local authorities is approximately €2,500.
