It will take longer for the tangible benefits relating to housing to become evident, however over €2bn will be invested in housing supports in a number of areas.

A total of €2.3 billion is allocated to the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government for housing in 2019. In addition, local authorities will spend an extra €93 million on housing programmes, funded from Local Property Tax surpluses. This brings the total spending on housing to almost €2.4 billion for 2019.

Social housing support

€1.25 billion has been allocated for the delivery of 10,000 new social homes in 2019. These homes will be delivered through a combination of construction, acquisition and leasing.

An increase of €40 million has been allocated to the Social Housing Current Expenditure Programme, bringing the total to €155 million. This will allow the continued delivery of 14,000 leased homes and 4,800 additional social homes in 2019.

Funding for the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme is increasing by €121 million to €423 million. This will provide an additional 16,760 HAP tenancies in 2019, as well as supporting those already on the HAP scheme.

Funding of €134 million is allocated to the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) to provide for an additional 600 new tenancies under the scheme, as well as the ongoing cost of households already supported under RAS.

Funding of €13 million is allocated for a range of Traveller-specific accommodation schemes.

The energy efficiency programme will receive funding of €25 million in 2019 to improve the energy efficiency of 9,000 social homes.

Supports for homeless people

The current allocation for homeless services will increase by €30 million, to €146 million in 2019. This will be used to fund emergency accommodation and help people transition from homelessness into long-term housing.

It is intended that 5,000 adults will exit homelessness in 2019.

The Housing First initiative and the Family Hub programme will continue to be funded and rolled out in 2019.

An extra €60 million will be made available to fund additional emergency accommodation and family hubs for winter 2018.

People in mortgage arrears

€23 million has been allocated to the mortgage to rent scheme for 2019. This will allow over 400 households to avail of the scheme, which lets people in mortgage difficulty switch from owning their home to renting their home as a social housing tenant.

Affordability

€89 million is provided in 2019 for a Serviced Sites Fund. This fund will deliver at least 6,000 subsidised affordable homes on local authority sites over its lifetime. The scheme will apply to new homes for single people earning up to €50,000 and couples earning up to €75,000.

Regeneration, adaptations and remediation

The National Regeneration Programme will receive funding of €72 million.

Funding for housing adaptation grants is increased to €57 million to enable up to 11,800 home adaptations for people with disabilities and older people.

Funding of €32 million is allocated for the remediation of a further 460 houses affected by pyrite.

Private rented housing

The interest relief that landlords can claim against loans used to buy, improve or repair a rental property has increased from 80% to 100%. (This will be effective from 1 January 2019).

To find out more, visit citizensinformation.ie call 0761 07 4000 or drop in to your local Citizens Information Centre.