10 May 2006

Environment

Housing Waiting Lists

Ciarán Cuffe asked the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the number of persons or families on the housing waiting lists of local authorities in each of the past five years for which figures are available.

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (Mr. N. Ahern): The statutory assessment of housing need is undertaken by local authorities on a triennial basis. The most recent assessment of need for social housing was undertaken by local authorities in March 2005 with the previous assessment carried out in 2002.

The results of the 2005 assessment indicated that there were 43,684 households on local authority housing waiting lists compared with 48,413 households in March 2002 a decrease of almost 10%. More comprehensive data in relation to the 2005 assessment at an individual local authority level will be published shortly in the Annual Bulletin of Housing Statistics and on my Department’s website at www.environ.ie