Millions for 'social' housing were used elsewhere

Tens of millions of euro available to build council houses over the last 10 years were not claimed by city and county councils, leading to the money being used elsewhere.

Details of the council or "social" houses which were approved by Government, but which were never provided, were released by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Roche, yesterday.

The figures reveal that in the 10 years to 2003, 47,700 council house "starts" were approved by the Department of the Environment but just 38,743 homes were provided, a shortfall of almost 9,000 homes.

Among the worst performers was Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council in Dublin which in 2000 managed to build just 11 "social" houses and buy 19 more - a total of 30 houses out of Government approval for 225.

This represents an achievement rate of just 13.33 per cent. Over the 10 years, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown achieved only 59.25 per cent of its approved housing starts.

However, Fingal County Council's 10-year average was worse at 52.01 per cent or a little more than half its approved number of houses.

The 10-year average for South Dublin County Council was just 59.26 per cent of all approvals.

While the Dublin areas are heavily populated and land may be scarce, the figures for Dublin City Council reveal that it achieved 96.43 per cent of all approved starts in the period.

Similar high scores were achieved in other cities, with Galway City Council recording an achievement of 99.81 per cent.

Limerick City Council achieved 77.68 of its target, and Waterford City Council achieved 75.46 per cent of its approved start up.

However there were some local authorities which managed to provide more houses than the Government had approved.

Cavan County Council exceeded its target with 833 "completions" - houses build and bought - a figure which was 102.46 per cent of target.

Waterford County Council appears to have been the State's most successful at 104.12 per cent.

The figures do not include "affordable" schemes which may be contributed by builders' obligations under part V of the Planning and Development Act, or houses provided by vacancies in existing stock; or voluntary and co-operative housing.

However, when figures for these "affordable" schemes are added into the numbers of "social" houses achieved, the joint total still falls behind the number of "social" houses sanctioned by Government in many local authorities.

Commenting on the figures on the eve of the Budget, Mr Roche said it was clear that some local authorities were under-performing on the delivery of "social" housing, and not the Government as had been suggested by Opposition politicians.

In relation to the 2005 allocations, the Minister said to cut funds to local authorities with a poor record would "simply rebound on the housing applicants". He also said he had no intention "of making Budget day announcements about large amounts of money which would never be spent".

However he said it was clear there was a problem, and he laid the blame with elected councillors who had been elected by local people to deliver on housing issues, and instead of ensuring houses were built, money was going back into other projects.

Expressing his determination to ensure that the 2005 allocations were "wisely used", the Minister said he was "determined to drive the whole issue of 'social' housing. I want better performance across the board.

"I will be asking serious questions of the directors of housing services and local council chairmen of those councils that have a poor record."