Construction BUSINESS

The housing lists in Cork City and County are set to reduce with news that 69 social housing units will be delivered by the local authorities by the end of 2017.

The move has been confirmed this morning by Ciarán Lynch.

Overall, a total of €204,946,289 is to be invested in the two Cork local authorities from now until 2017 to enable them to increase the numbers of social housing units that can be acquired or built.

Details of the new Build, Buying & Leasing Programme were confirmed by Environment Minister Alan Kelly today and outline the plan to significantly reduce the numbers of people on housing lists locally.

Speaking this morning, Ciarán Lynch said: “This announcement has been made possible by the €3.8bn social housing strategy secured by Minister Kelly at Budget time.

“Today we are seeing the fruits of this strategy trickling down to local level in bricks and mortar terms with confirmation of social housing targets that have been set for Cork until 2017.

“Each local authority was asked to bring forward housing unit targets and specific building projects out to 2017. As part of the strategy, targets had to be agreed with each local authority in 2015.

“I look forward to seeing the social housing dividend of this investment and trust it will have a substantial impact on the housing needs of the local area. I will be working closely with Minister Kelly to ensure that our local area gets its fair share of funding.

“Nationwide, today’s announcement will see over €1.5bn invested in a combination of building, buying and leasing schemes by local authorities designed to accommodate 25pc of those currently on the housing waiting lists in social housing.
“It is no coincidence that a Labour Minister is bringing forward a major social housing announcement, given that the last time when an announcement of a similar scale was made Labour were in office.”

Labour.