The Cabinet is set to approve an ambitious social housing plan which will provide as many as 30,000 new and refurbished houses over the next four to five years.
Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly is bringing a memorandum on his social housing strategy to Cabinet, with a public announcement due later. Officials are fine-tuning the details, including calculating the exact number of houses and apartments to make available.
However, a senior Government source said the plan would be bigger and longer than that announced by Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin in his budget speech.
Increase
That proposal promised an investment of €2.2 billion in housing between 2015 and 2017, an increase of about 40 per cent. A total of more than €800 million of that will be spent in 2015, with 7,500 houses and apartments made available as social housing.
The memo being brought by Mr Kelly to Cabinet will outline his plans for 2016 and succeeding years. Government funding of €1.5 billion will make up most of the €2.2 billion spend until 2017, with the balance comprising €300 million from public-private partnerships and €400 million in off-balance-sheet spending.
Refurbishment
Mr Kelly is expected to flesh out the details of how the €700 million PPP and off-balance-sheet funding will be raised. In addition, the source said the scheme would be “beefed up substantially” and geared to deliver more units over a longer number of years.
This figure could be as high as 30,000 over four or five years and achieved through a combination of new builds and refurbished local authority houses and flats.
The Government has plans to make 1,000 vacant dwellings available for new tenants in 2015.
The provision of new social and local authority housing has stagnated in recent years despite growing demand as a consequence of the recession. The department’s own assessment in 2013 identified 90,000 households “in need of social housing support”.
The plans for 2015 also include 400 homes for people with specific needs and 150 for people with disabilities requiring institutional care.
