Unfinished estates 2012 data viz

Following on from yesterday’s post regarding the 2012 National Housing Development Survey concerning unfinished estates we took a further look at the data and have produced an interactive data visualization of the comparing counties spreadsheet.  This spreadsheet concerns the 2,973 estates surveyed, not the 1,770 estates that the DECLG say now constitute unfinished estates.  Because we don’t have data that relates specifically to these 1,770 estates we can’t disentangle them from the 2,973 surveyed. With respect to the types of property, the data refers to all units started and planned for, rather than simply started.  We have tried to tidy up the infrastructure data so that it relates to units actually started as opposed to those started and planned.  We have also set out the rates of occupancy, vacancy and construction per county, and the extent to which planning permissions have expired.

Eoghan McCarthy and Rob Kitchin

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Statistical solutions to the unfinished estates problem

Yesterday Minister Jan O’Sullivan published the 2012 National Housing Development Survey.  The headline story from this is that the number of estates categorised as unfinished has fallen from 2,876 in 2011 to 1,770 in 2012, and that decisions will be taken in the new year on which estates are commercially unviable and need to have parts of them demolished (especially in the midlands and border region).

Along with the report, the Department of Environment also published the data they used in the report in three separate files comparing counties, profiling individual counties, and profiling individual estates.

So, have the number of unfinished estates fallen by 1,106 and is the problem of unfinished estates receding?

Technically, yes.  But this is where I link to the title of this post.  The drop is principally because the DECLG have changed the definition of an unfinished estate.  The definition used in 2010 and 2011 refers to estates that have issues of vacancy and oversupply as well as outstanding development works.  In 2012 the definition refers only to estates where there is outstanding development work.  At one level, this change makes sense.  The 1,770 estates that need development work are the most problematic.  At the same time, the issue of vacancy and oversupply has not gone away, affect the overall market, and have consequence re. anti-social behaviour, sense of place and community, etc.  Indeed, on the old definition the number of estates surveyed rose in 2012 to 2,973.

This is not the only bit of being creative with the numbers.  Oddly, the figures both work for and against the government.

For the government

Overall occupancy: the overall level of occupancy in unfinished is reported as 91,692 – this is occupancy across the 2,973 estates surveyed not the 1,770 we’re told now constitute unfinished estates.  It is useful to have the data for the 2,973 estates but it also needs to be reported specifically for the 1,770.

Complete and vacant units: the overall level of vacancy is reported as 16,881, down from 18,638 in 2011 – again this is refers to the 2,973 estates surveyed.

Vacancy per county: the report provides a table and map of vacancy per 1,000 households for each county.  This actually refers to vacancy in unfinished estates, not overall residential vacancy in a county.  Making sense of vacancy in unfinished estates needs to be contextualised with respect to overall vacancy and oversupply, not simply the number of households.  The housing market is not simply unfinished estates and the data as presented is misleading.

Against the government

Services: In the comparing counties data file the reported figures for services are all shockingly bad.  Across the 2,973 estates (again there is no specific data for the 1,770) 57% of units have incomplete roads, 40.1% have incomplete paths, 42.5% have no lighting, 41.1% have no potable (drinking) water, 39.3% have no storm water drainage, 41.3% have no water waste (sewage), with 91,693 families living on these estates.  Actually these figures are grossly overstated because of how they are calculated and the numbers are much less.  They have been calculated against all housing units that had original planning permission, not those that were started.  There are two problems here.  First, planning permission has expired for 24,864 units, second why calculate for units that don’t exist?  The fact that 60,055 phantom houses don’t have potable water, and these are included in the rate of units that don’t have potable water, doesn’t make any sense.  The rates are actually much smaller, though nonetheless are a significant problem on many estates.

What are my headline stories from the report?

I have two main observations from the report.  The first is that 1,100 of the estates are in a ‘seriously problematic condition‘.  Families in these estates are living on building sites.  Second is that only 250 estates (8.5% of 1,770) are active – that is, the developer is on site and is undertaking works.  In 2010 it was 429, in 2011 it was 244.  That means that 1,520 of the estates that require development work are not in receipt of it and given that developers have gone bust they are not likely to receive it in the short to mid-term. The number of underconstruction units in 2011 was 17,872 and in 2012 it was 17,032.  All but 38 of the reduction is ‘nearly complete’ units being fitted out.  Anything half-built is staying half-built.  In the vast majority of cases then, unfinished estates are being left to wither on the vine, the great majority of which are in a ‘seriously problematic condition’.

To be fair to Minister O’Sullivan she fully recognizes these issues.  On the other hand, the actions of the government are painfully slow, some would say pathetic.  As we’ve argued before, the policy of Site Resolution Plans (SRPs) is a minimal cost, minimal effort approach to unfinished estates that give the impression of policy-at-work, but is really a sticking plaster that tries to stop a problem getting worse before the ‘surgeon’ in the form of the market re-appears to fix things.  In the present and foreseeable property market that ‘surgeon’ is not going to appear any time soon.  In the meantime, families are left living on developments that are substandard with huge negative equity that locks them in.

Five years after the property crash started to plummet its time unfinished estates problem was tackled properly, rather than simply messing about with the numbers.  That’s not to say the numbers are not important – we need to know what is going on (preferably with non-creative and meaningless data) – but what we really need is action for the families living on these estates.

Rob Kitchin

 

What are the real household charge numbers?

The Department of Environment persists in stating that 1.6m households are liable for the household charge.  This is patently not the case.  It is houses that are liable for the tax not households.  If a person owns two houses – one they live in, one a holiday home, they pay twice.  They wouldn’t do that if it was a tax purely on households.  The household charge is a tax on property.  There are 1.994m habitable housing units in the state – they are all liable for the tax with some exemptions.   Here is some useful data compiled by the Campaign Against Household & Water Taxes from official statistics and Dail questions.  It gives a much more thorough picture of the liabilities relating to the household charge than the governments line, and that is the case whether you are for or against the charge.

1    Housing units in state     1,994,845    CSO

2    Unoccupied/vacant housing units unsold  18,636    Housing Development Survey, DECLG, 2011

3    Renting social housing   129,033    Census 2011, Table 39.

4    Renting voluntary housing    14,942    Census 2011, Table 39

5    Being bought from Local Authorities under shared ownership scheme    23,547    Census 2006. Doesn’t appear to be in Census 2011.

6    Mortgage interest relief    19,000     Keane Report

7    Housing units in unfinished estates    34,000     Money Guide Ireland

8    Number of landlords who registered Non Principal Private Residence (NPPR) in 2011    183,551   NAMAwinelake

9    Number of NPPR registered in 2011 for the NPPR Tax    339,431

10    Number of housing units for which the HHT was paid on 1st June 2012    915,408    Dail Question Ref No:   27986/12. Clare Daly.

11    Numbers waivered for HHT on 1st June 2012    17,167    Dail Question Ref No:   27986/12. Clare Daly.

12    Number of housing units registered to multiple accounts on 1st June 2012    332,900    Dail Question Ref No:   27986/12. Clare Daly.

13    Number of accounts to which more than one unit was registered on 1st June 2012    106,332    Dail Question Ref No:   27986/12. Clare Daly.

Figures calculated from above

14    Number of housing units liable to register for Household Tax (HHT)    1,808,687    (1-2-3-4-5)

15    Number of housing units liable to pay the Household Tax    1,755,687    (14-6-7)

16    Total number of property owners liable to register     1,469,256    (14-9)

17    Number of housing units actually registered on 1st June 2012    932,575    (10 + 11)

18    Number of housing units not registered on 1st June 2012    876,112   ( 14-17)

19    Number of NPPRs registered assuming the family home was also registered on the same account.    226,568    (12-13).

20    Number of property owners registered on 1st June 2012 (Accounts with LGMA) assuming each account also has the Principal Private Residence registered.    706,007    (10 + 11 – 19)

21    Number of property owners who have not registered.    763,249    (16-20)

22    % of property owners not registered    52

These figures seem to be correct, although there are some exception that need to be taken out of the total number of liable housing units (exemptions 2, 5, 6, 7 – all small, but not in the public domain; might account for up to c.20K units)

With thanks to Mick Murphy (National Treasurer of the Campaign Against Household & Water Taxes) for sending us the information.

Rob Kitchin

 

Some thoughts on household charge/property tax

I believe we should have a property tax in Ireland and I genuinely want to pay my fair share of a progressive property tax when it is legitimately and properly introduced in this country. However, I have many concerns about the ‘confusion’ surrounding the recently introduced household charge.

For example, is the new household charge a true property tax or is it another form of personal taxation masquerading as a property tax?  If it is a property tax, then why not simply describe it as such? The relevant enabling legislation is entitled The Local Government (Household Charge) Act 2011. But a household is not a house or a property – it’s a person or group of people living together in a single domestic unit according to Collins English Dictionary.

This raises another important question: does the personalization of this new ‘tax’ place it outside the domain of property and commercial law? Presumably those who have signed up to pay this charge have entered into a binding contract to continue paying it. But can those who haven’t registered be taken to court if invoices and associated receipts are not being issued in respect of payment for this ‘charge’ and if there is no evidence of a breach of any established commercial contract?

Of course, the whole thing may be an exercise in obfuscation and manipulation.  We may be witnessing another example of weasel wording /actions being employed for ulterior motives – in this case disguising the fact that a direct form of personal taxation is being deployed as the legal bulwark for a campaign to bluff people into voluntarily enrolling into a binding contract that can ultimately be enforced in the commercial courts.

The personalization of this tax undoubtedly permits the authorities to use the threat of deploying the Revenue Commissioners as enforcers against those who refuse to volunteer for the new ‘property’ charge – in effect, allowing the authorities to raid personal income via the PAYE route. However, to actually pursue this option would surely be a contradiction insofar as it would confirm de facto that the charge is not a property tax. It would also be ironic to go down the income tax route in view of the stated decision by the Irish government to rule out the option of raising the targeted revenue via income tax because this “would constitute a tax on jobs.”

As stated, I believe in property taxes. However, I do not wish to be duped, or bullied, into signing-up for a dubious tax. Moreover, I am not confident that the recent emergency introduction of the household charge will transform into a fully thought out or properly administered property tax system next year or in the foreseeable future. The record to date of our state authorities suggests that purported interim solutions to funding problems become entrenched as incrementalist and crisis-management approaches to ‘leadership’ compels our state representatives to move on to identify ever new sources of emergency revenues. In short, it is likely that the inappropriate and emergency ad-hoc arrangements introduced to collect the household charges will simply be left in place, with the prospect of higher charges being applied year on year to an illegitimate scheme.

Why not just take a little more time and introduce a genuine property tax – and do it properly, genuinely and transparently?  Indeed, surely the vaunted Fiscal Troika could be easily convinced about the merits of a slightly delayed but acceptable and sustainable property tax in preference to the current shambles.

On a weekend radio programme recently, I heard Minister Joan Burton deride those who refused to pay the household charge as an assemblage of two recalcitrant factions: those on the extreme left of the political spectrum and those who always seek to avoid paying any local charges. Setting aside the offensive tone of the remark, this classification is also surely incomplete as my observation suggests that many people fall into a third category – those who are willing to pay a genuine property tax but who are wary of the subterfuge and over-assertive behavior of the authorities. I know of many instances in recent times where individuals made queries to public servants about the legitimacy, appropriateness or fairness of crudely applied new measures designed to either make savings or raise new state funding. Too often these inquiries have been rebuffed with the stock response of “challenge it in courts”, something most of us simply can’t afford to do in these straitened times.

It would be interesting to see how the state authorities would react if the harassed taxpayers could combine to play this game and call their bluffs by taking legal action against suspect decisions. If those who haven’t paid the household charge to date contributed the equivalent amount to a solidarity fund to support legal challenges against doubtful state diktats, a substantial war chest (of up to €80 million or more) could be created for the purpose of safeguarding honest governance. If such a fund is created, its first challenge should, of course, be to test the democratic credentials of the household charge that claims to be a property tax.

Brendan Bartley

 

 

Unfinished estates report and DECLG actions

Willie Penrose T.D., Minister for Planning and Housing, published two documents through the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government today relating to unfinished estates.

The first is ‘Resolving Ireland’s Unfinished Housing Developments: Report of the Advisory Group on Unfinished Housing Developments‘, which sets out the various issues relating to unfinished estates and makes various recommendations with respect to addressing these issues.  It extends the Advisory Board’s draft report published back in February.

The second is the Department’s response: ‘Resolving Unfinished Housing Developments: Response to the Advisory Group on Unfinished Housing Developments‘.  This sets out four strategic aims for the next twelve months (developing a coordinated partnership approach to unfinished estates; tackling issues of public safety; putting in place stronger legislation/policy frameworks to tackle issues; building confidence in the housing market) and a number of action points for the Department and related agencies.

There are two other associated documents that have yet to be published – the manual on how to tackle in practical terms the issues related to unfinished estates (which will be an updated version of the draft manual published in Dec 2010) and the code of practice.  These are due shortly and will give more specific information for developers, local authorities and other stakeholders.

The Department’s response piece is, in my view, the more important document because it commits the DECLG to 20 actions set out in relation to five themes.  The most important of these are the development of Site Resolution Plans (SRPs) that will involve a partnership approach to estate completion, whereby all stakeholders (developers, banks, local authorities, residents, estate management companies, Health and Safety Authority, etc) will meet to negotiate a plan of action on an estate by estate basis.  The action points in summary are:

Coordination and Partnership

1.    A National Co-ordination Team on Unfinished Housing Developments, under the chair of the Minister, will drive the implementation process, with a particular focus on resolving sites.

2.    City and County Councils will each establish Unfinished Housing Development Teams to co-ordinate actions at a local level and to provide regular reports to the National Co-ordination Team.

3.    A Code of Practice on issues such as public safety, the site resolution plan process, information exchange and identification of development solutions will be finalised by the National Co-ordination Team to ensure buy-in by developers, site owners, funders, local authorities and residents.

4.    In cases where the relevant loans / securities fall within their remit, NAMA will work with local authorities, developers and/or receivers and the Department in facilitating early resolution of public safety issues and in co-operating with the other stakeholders in agreeing and implementing Site Resolution Plans, where feasible and appropriate.

5.    The Minister will engage with other financial institutions (both domestic and non-domestic banks) to ensure a full understanding of their statutory responsibilities and to secure their co-operation and engagement with local authorities and developers in addressing public safety issues and in agreeing and implementing Site Resolution Plans.

6.    An Information Pack for local residents in unfinished housing developments will be prepared and published by the Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency.

7.    Guidance will be issued to City and County Development Boards on encouraging and facilitating community involvement in resolving unfinished housing developments.

8.    A best practice Guidance Manual on Managing and Resolving Unfinished Housing Developments on unfinished housing developments will provide practical guidance for local authorities and other stakeholders on how to manage unfinished housing developments

Public Safety

9.    Local authorities will complete their own initial categorisation of unfinished housing sites in line with the four categories identified in the Advisory Group’s Report and will monitor the developments in their areas, updating regularly the National Co-ordination Team on the status of housing developments in their area.

10.    The Department will expedite the approval of applications for funding support from the €5 million public safety initiative funding with the first allocations to be made in June 2011.

11.    Local authorities and the Health and Safety Authority will continue to liaise and engage in monitoring incomplete sites and any resolution activities being undertaken either by the developer or local authority.

12.    The Department will provide ongoing technical assistance to local authorities on the categorisation of developments, on the formulation of an initial site response using the funding at 10) above, on the preparation of Site Resolution Plans, as well as planning and building control queries.

Site Resolution Plans

13.    City and County Unfinished Housing Development Teams will identify priority sites that should be the subject of Site Resolution Plans and will work with site owners, developers, funders and residents in their efforts to develop such plans, reporting to the National Co-ordination Team, with a view to ensuring that 300 Site Resolution Plans are in place by end 2011.

14.    City and County Unfinished Housing Development Teams will develop best practice approaches to the re-use of vacant housing in each of their areas by the end of 2011.

Legislative and Policy Framework

15.    The Department will immediately review existing legislation as identified by the Advisory Group and develop any necessary amendments to the legislation to ensure that there are adequate powers available to address the efficient resolution of unfinished housing developments

16.    The Department will review taking-in-charge standards for public infrastructure within housing developments such as roads, public lighting and piped services with a view to making recommendations on how best to develop national standards.

17.    The Report of the Advisory Group will be referred to the Building Standards Compliance Group for its analysis and response.

Housing Market and Planning Supports

18.    The Department will re-state previous planning guidance to planning authorities on specific policy aspects regarding better phasing of development, the provision of bonds / securities and other DECLG policies as regards sequential and phased development to inform the resolution of unfinished housing.

19.    The Department, working alongside local authorities and voluntary housing bodies, will engage actively with developers and site owners, including NAMA, in seeking to ensure positive uses for vacant complete and near complete housing and in line with the achievement of sustainable communities and balanced tenure of housing developments.

20.    The Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency will undertake an examination of the potential role for self-build and equity partnership type models to enable residents and new investors to assist in resolving unfinished components of housing developments.

What is good is that the DECLG have now appraised the situation and set out a set of action points.  It is particularly good to see a National Coordination Team being put in place and that legislation is going to be reviewed with a view to putting SRPs on a statuary basis and make amendments to existing legislation to aid their implementation.  I do, however, still have a number of concerns.

First, the speed of response.  We are four years into the housing crash and the development of the unfinished estates phenomenon.  It has taken 15 odd months to get from the announcement of a survey to a report and yet a lot of these action points are still at the reviewing and assessment/formulating solutions stage.  In the meantime, lots of people are living with a whole series of issues, many of them concerning health and safety.  The latter has been an supposedly urgent action point for quite some time.  It is true that some local authorities and developers/receivers have already moved to address some of these issues, but it is only now that the first €1.5m of funding is being released to LAs to tackle issues on the worst 230 identified estates.  The aim is to have 300 SRPs in place by the end of the year.  That is 10.5% of all estates (2,846) or on average 9 per local authority.  It’s not clear also whether that is 300 SRPs drawn up or actually in the process of being implemented.  We need to get to the implementation phase across all estates sooner rather than later.

Second, finance.  Finishing off estates and addressing their various issues is going to cost money.  There are 1,655 estates with works outstanding.  At present, there seems to be four possible sources of funding: developer bonds; the DECLG through its €5m public safety fund; NAMA and its development fund; developers/banks who own the estate or possible new investors.  There seem to be massive issues in drawing bonds down and if they can be accessed they are often insufficient to complete outstanding works.  The DECLG €5m split across 1,655 estates is €3200 per estate, which will hardly scratch the surface; NAMA will only invest in estates that are commercially viable and for which they hold the loan book; developers are bust and banks illiquid.  It really isn’t clear to me where the finance is going to come from for either developers or local authorities (where developers are absent) to finish off estates without central government funds being made available (and no such fund was announced today beyond the €5m).  One suggested solution is to recoup the costs from future sales, but again this would only work if an estate is commercial viable, investors come in, and market conditions improve in the short to medium term.  I would like to know a lot more about plans with respect to financing and I’m sure stakeholders would as well.

Third, I am still concerned that the model for SRPs is one of partnership and has the feel of voluntarism about it.  SRPs seek to encourage and not compel developers and stakeholders.  The two documents today are full of phrases like ‘encouraged to work’ and ‘should undertake’ rather than be ‘compelled to work’ and ‘will undertake.’  Without the new full manual it is difficult to fully comment on this, but it also still seems as if there is no conflict resolution mechanisms or clearly delineated objectives, milestones and timeframes for SRPs.  The danger is that negotiations become divisive and fractious and implementation effectively gets kicked down the road.  The role of the National Coordination Team is also not clear.  It seems to have some monitoring function, but its not clear if it’ll be hands on in terms of overseeing, assessing and directing progress and what it’ll do if SRPs are failing.

The next stage is clearly the publication of manual and the code of practice.  Hopefully they will turn up soon.  Today’s report and the DECLG’s response is a step in the right direction, but whether the action points and strategy being pursued will deliver, or deliver significant improvements for residents any time soon, is still an open question.

Rob  Kitchin

 

Social housing vacancy and turnaround time and the Social Housing Investment Programme

Willie Penrose TD, Minister for Housing and Planning, was in action in the Dail last week fielding questions – see Dail Debates (17th May) and Dail Eireann Written Answers (18th May) (pages 101-121).  He answered questions on a range of issues, but one area that caught my attention was in relation to social housing vacancy, turnaround time until reoccupied and re-fitting costs because the answers came with some data I’ve not seen before.

With respect to data on turnaround times the Minister drew attention to “The sixth annual report of the Local Government Management Services Board [LGMSG], published in February 2011, which details service indicators in local authorities in 2009, shows the average time taken, from the date of vacating of a unit to the date when all necessary repairs are carried out, to re-let a unit in each authority. The figures show that some 4,286 dwellings were vacant, accounting for 3.4% of the total national social housing stock of around 126,000 units.  The length of time taken to re-let units varies considerably between authorities and ranges from as little as one week in Limerick City Council to as high as 45 weeks in South Tipperary County Council.”

He supplied the following table taken from the report of the LGMSB.

Average time taken (in weeks) from the date of vacation of dwelling to the date whenall necessary repairs are carried out and which are deemed necessary to re-let the dwelling
Carlow County Council	17.7
Cavan County Council	13.0
Clare County Council	18.2
Cork City Council	17.9
Cork County Council	11.1
Donegal County Council	24
Dublin City Council	19.5
Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council	15.9
Fingal! County Council	18
Galway City Council	7
Galway County Council	30.1
Kerry County Council	24.1
Kildare County Council	6.9
Kilkenny County Council	19.7
Laois County Council	18
Leitrim County Council	15.1
Limerick City Council	1
Limerick County Council	40.2
Longford County Council	7
Louth County Council	8
Mayo County Council	18.5
Meath County Council	11
Monaghan County Council	14.8
North Tipperary County Council	12.5
Offaly County Council	8.8
Roscommon County Council	21.3
Sligo County Council	18.6
South Dublin County Council	18.7
South Tipperary County Council	45.8
Waterford City Council	9
Waterford County Council	19.5
Westmeath County Council	5.2
Wexford County Council	9.2
Wicklow County Council	25.6

Given the numbers of people on the social housing waiting list and the pressure to obtain social housing it would be very interesting to find out why there is such a wide variation in the length of time it takes local authorities to repair and refit housing and get new tenants into their new homes.  These figures are an average, so one presumes in some cases houses are unoccupied for more than a year.  The figure of a one week average for Limerick City seems barely credible, especially given the length of the other counties, but maybe they have a special refit and relocate team?

The DECLG programme to aid financially local authorities in refitting and refurbing local authority housing is the Social Housing Investment Programme.  Here’s what he had to say about it in the written answer:  “Under my Department’s Social Housing Investment Programme, local authorities are allocated capital funding each year in respect of a range of measures to improve the standard and overall quality of their social housing stock. The programme includes a retrofitting measure aimed at improving the energy efficiency of older apartments and houses.

My Department requested local authorities specifically to target vacant dwellings in 2011 with the objective of returning the maximum number of vacant units to productive use at reasonable cost. However, necessary improvement works to occupied houses will continue to be eligible for funding from within the allocations notified to individual authorities.

Some €31million is being provided to local authorities in 2011 in respect of their social housing improvement works programmes.”

And in the Dail Debate: “This [€31m] does not include funding for large-scale regeneration projects and estate-wide remedial works projects which also include retrofitting and refurbishment works on vacant dwellings, for which a further provision of €172 million is being made this year. My Department’s improvement works programme is specifically targeting vacant dwellings in 2011 with the objective of returning the maximum number of vacant units to productive use at reasonable cost. In the case of casual or short-term vacancies, a grant of up to €18,000 or 90% of cost, whichever is the lesser, is recouped to the local authority in respect of works to improve the standard and the energy efficiency of a dwelling.

In the case of properties which have remained vacant for a protracted period or properties which have fallen into a state of serious disrepair, a special measure is being introduced this year which will allow local authorities to claim up to €35,000 for each unit returned to productive use. Authorities are required to prepare an Improvement plan for vacant properties for 2011, outlining the number of vacant properties on hands and setting out the proposed measures to improve these properties.

My Department’s records show that over the period 2004 to 2010 some €52 million was recouped to local authorities in respect of improvements works on vacant properties. I will also circulate with the Official Report a tabular statement setting out details in this regard.”

Here is that improvement works data.

RECOUPMENT IN RESPECT OF IMPROVEMENT WORKS TO VOID PROPERTIES 2004 – 2010
€
Cavan County Council	451,395.00
Clare County Council	793,307.00
Cork City Council	2,853,410.00
Cork County Council	2,108,482.00
Donegal County Council	377,536.00
Dublin City Council	31,021,448.63
Fingal County Council	430,965.00
Galway City Council	209,752.00
Galway County Council	356,277.00
Kerry County Council	2,645,289.00
Kildare County Council	134,194.00
Leitrim County Council	223,454.00
Limerick City Council	1,181,503.00
Limerick County Council	547,564.00
Longford County Council	762,839.00
Louth County Council	702,664.00
Mayo County Council	1,371,463.00
Meath County Council	1,514,163.00
Monaghan County Council	211,002.00
Offaly County Council	272,705.00
Roscommon County Council	379,677.00
Sligo Borough Council	357,555.00
Sligo County Council	165,181.00
North Tipperary County Council	664,857.00
South Tipperary County Council	27,611.00
Waterford City Council	1,588,878.00
Wexford County Council	712,730.00
Wicklow County Council	821,583.00
Total	52,887,484.63

€203m then is being made available in 2011 to help repair and refit local authority housing this year, including large scale regeneration projects such as Ballymun and Limerick.  If this is the full allocation, then the €172m directed at large scale regeneration projects is almost certainly a fairly large rollback on what was originally allocated and required, albeit it’ll go some way towards addressing some pressing issues.  It’ll be interesting to see how much of the funding available is drawn down and its effects on void social housing turnaround times.

Minister Penrose also acknowledged that the Advisory Group on Unfinished Housing Developments had submitted its final report to him on May 6^th.  He presently “considering its findings and recommendations and will bring proposed actions and recommendations to Government for approval shortly, with a view to publishing the Report thereafter“.

Rob Kitchin