More than 13,000 social homes provided last year

More than 13,000 homes were provided for social housing last year, an increase of 86 per cent on 2014, according to the first annual report of the Government’s Social Housing 2020 Strategy.

The strategy, published in late 2014, aims to provide 110,000 homes for people on local authority housing waiting lists by 2020. As part of the Government plan, 35,000 houses are to be built at a cost of €3.8 billion to the State.

Of the 13,141 houses delivered last year, just over 1,000 were built or bought by local authorities, while almost 2,300 were provided by refurbishing empty houses or “voids”. Approved housing bodies built 350 homes, and just over 100 were provided through regeneration projects.

However, the majority of the new homes are rented, with the largest number, 5,600, provided through the Housing Assistance Payment, where rents are paid directly to landlords by the State on behalf of tenants.

Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly said the number of homes provided would be increased to 17,000 this year. As part of this 1,000 would be built by local authorities, at a cost to the State of €182 million.

Homeless charity Peter McVerry Trust welcomed the publication of the report but said it was a concern that certain targets were not met.

"The social housing strategy provides for 75,000 households to be housed in the private rental market, yet in year one the strategy only achieved 72 per cent of its intended 10,400 unit target . . . This may be an early indication of just how difficult it will be to secure housing for 75,000 households in the private rental market," the trust's chief executive Pat Doyle said.

It was also unlikely, he said, that the high number of void refurbishments would continue this year. “These units accounted for a significant proportion of the output in 2015. The reality we face in 2016 is that this source is no longer available as void rates have dropped dramatically, now less than 1 per cent in Dublin. Therefore, in 2016 we really need to see a dramatic increase in actual delivery of new built programmes and property acquisitions.”