As part of a commitment to drive greater transparency and accountability for the delivery of social housing across the country, Minister for Housing, Planning & Local Government Eoghan Murphy today (20 February, 2019) published social housing delivery figures for the high-level programmes of build, acquisition, leasing, HAP and RAS for all 31 local authorities.
In 2018, delivery against target has been published, on a quarterly basis, on the Rebuilding Ireland website and the full year of activity by each local authority can now be reviewed on the website.
Overall, the target for social housing delivery in 2018, under Rebuilding Ireland, was exceeded by 6% and the housing needs of over 27,103 households were met.
Of note is the following:
• 8,422 new homes were brought into the active social housing stock through build, acquisitions, voids and leasing programmes in 2018. (4,251 build; 560 renovated voids; 2,610 acquisitions & 1,001 long-term leased).
• There was an 85% increase in new build social homes in 2018 when compared to 2017 (excluding voids).
• The number of new social housing homes built in 2018 was eight times greater than the number built in 2015, the year before Rebuilding Ireland (excluding voids).
• Construction figures from December 2018 show almost 5,000 new social housing homes currently being built across 291 sites and this is being added to on a weekly basis.
• 38% delivered by AHB’s in partnership with local authorities.
• New build and long term leasing is helping us move away from HAP solutions as demonstrated by the fact that new HAP solutions did not increase significantly in 2018, but all other delivery streams did.
At last week’s Housing Summit Minister Murphy took the opportunity to discuss individual rates of delivery for each local authority against their target and also stressed the need to further accelerate and enhance delivery pipelines, in particular new-build activity.
Minister Murphy again reaffirmed the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government commitment to supporting local authorities and Approved Housing Bodies deliver much-needed homes across the country. He emphasised that funding and resources are not an issue and that any delivery targets set for local authorities are minimum targets and stressed the importance of each local authority doing as much as possible.
In Galway, where there are significant delivery challenges, Minister Murphy is establishing a Galway Housing Delivery Task Force, which will be chaired by Ms. Geraldine Tallon, former Secretary General. Ms. Tallon currently chairs the Cork Housing Delivery Task Force, which has supported Cork City Council deliver 117% of their build target and Cork County Council 126% of their build target.
