Written Answers. - Parliamentary Debates - Houses of the Oireachtas

Questions— 14 February 2012. Written Answers
vided through South Dublin County Council for these projects and the Council had been
informed that it would not be possible for my Department to continue funding these projects
beyond 31 March 2012.
A consultation process has commenced between the projects, the relevant local authorities
and other bodies to explore alternative funding mechanisms for the mainstreamed drugs projects
for 2012 and beyond. My Department also met officials from South Dublin County
Council with regard to broader public funding for relevant projects and asked them to consider
the potential for the estate management projects to be reconfigured in line with the Council’s
housing management role. Following difficulties identified by the Council, the projects and
other funding partners in ensuring that projects have sufficient time to identify alternative
streams of funding and/or to undertake a reconfiguration of project tasks and priorities, my
Department has agreed to provide additional pro rata funding to support the projects for the
second quarter of 2012, i.e. to 30 June 2012, through a transfer of a further €100,000 from
within the provisional Housing programme estimate for 2012.
This funding is being provided strictly on a once off basis and on the clear understanding
that it represents an extension of the transitional arrangement only, thereby providing projects
with sufficient time to undertake a fully comprehensive consultation to identify future alternative
funding mechanisms. It will be a matter for all the public funding bodies, as part of the
consultation process, to identify resources to deliver on the overall objectives of the reconfigured
projects beyond end June 2012.
Furthermore, in the context of a public funding provision of €260 million for drugs programmes
across all Departments and agencies in 2011, my colleague, the Minister of State with
responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy is currently undertaking a review of the structures
that underpin the National Drugs Strategy at local, regional and national level, including
how the current funding structures can be improved or streamlined, particularly in relation to
local and regional drugs task forces.
Local Authority Housing
452. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and
Local Government the number of notices to quit, broken down by council, served in relation
to rent arrears in 2009, 2010 and 2011 and the levels of arrears in these instances; the numbers
of these notices to quit that have led to summonses and the number of evictions that resulted;
for those households evicted the tracking that is done and if it is known if any of those household
became homeless. [8162/12]
Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government
(Deputy Jan O’Sullivan): My Department has since 2008 collected data on rent arrears, calculated
by the total monetary amounts and not by individual persons or households, owing to
local authorities. The data are supplied in a tabular format below. However my Department
does not collect data on notices to quit related to those rent arrears.
Data in respect of 2011 are not yet available.
Local Authorities
Rent arrears at date specified
County Councils 1st Jan 2008 1st Jan 2009 1st Jan 2010
Carlow 84,873 109,471 160,989
Cavan 1 0 214,556 350,000
Clare 375,379 363,279 655,272
537