Government Announces Record Housing Funding Of 1.2 Billion Euro

The allocation of over €1 billion for the provision of local authority housing provides for work in progress on over 8,300 housing units and allows authorities to complete construction and acquire 5,500 houses this year including new dwellings completed under regeneration projects.

Announcing the record levels of funding, Minister Ahern said that "Local authorities are already aware of the substantial funding available for this and future years for social housing and have been urged to press ahead with implementation of their programmes in order to commence as many projects as possible in the current year.  

"I would anticipate that some 7,000 housing units should be started or acquired by local authorities in 2007 including new units provided in regeneration projects such as Ballymun."

Another record was set for funding of improvement works relating to Regeneration projects and Remedial Works Schemes - €127 million is being provided to local authorities for that purpose.   

The Minister said that the improvement works allocations include €65 million to fund the continued regeneration of Ballymun.  

The Minister continued, "Substantial progress is now being achieved in the regeneration of Ballymun. It is anticipated that a further 400 houses will be completed this year and 300 new houses will be started.  

"I am pleased that a total of over 1,000 new social housing units were completed up to the end of 2006 and that another 560 were under construction."

An additional €37 million is being provided for refurbishment work under the Remedial Works Scheme.  

In addition €25 million is to be provided to seven urban authorities so that they can perform major regeneration work in a number of estates in their areas.

The seven authorities receiving this specialised funding are Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Waterford City Councils, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, Dundalk Town Council and Sligo Borough Council.

"I believe it is essential that local authorities tackle the problems in these estates and the funding I am making available is a testament of my commitment to improving the lives of the people in these estates," the Minister explained.

Minister Ahern concluded by saying that in addition to the €127 million provided for improvement works, local authorities now have delegated authority from this year to the use of proceeds from the sale of their dwellings under the Tenant Purchase Scheme to fund planned programmes of improvement works to dwellings in their stock.      

The Minister commented, "I anticipate that some €100 million will be expended nationally this year on improvement works programmes for local authority social housing from internal capital receipts.

"This represents additional expenditure over and above the allocations I have announced which will go towards improving local authority housing stock."