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Construction Industry

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 February 2022

Tuesday, 15 February 2022

Questions (343)

Joe McHugh

Question:

343. Deputy Joe McHugh asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage his plans to encourage or incentivise medium-size builders who wish to build and who are facing obstacles from the banks and other difficulties to make developments financially feasible to construct in the first place; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7460/22]

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Written answers

Home Building Finance Ireland (HBFI), was established in 2018 to address a shortfall of finance available for the construction of residential housing, including by medium-size builders.

HBFI, which comes under the remit of my colleague, the Minister for Finance, was designed to increase access to residential development finance generally and, in particular, for projects that hadn't been the focus of traditional or alternative lenders at that time. It has €730m available for funding from the Irish Strategic Investment Fund and a further €750m can be raised in the market if required.

Some €835 million has been approved by HBFI to end December 2021. This constitutes approved funding for 3,729 new homes, consisting of 71 loan facilities, across 18 counties. To date, 519 HBFI-funded units have already been completed and sold, with a further 1,359 contracted for sale or with sale agreed.

Following the outbreak of Covid-19, HBFI temporarily widened its remit to allow it provide finance for larger prime residential projects finding it difficult to access development finance through the introduction of a new prime lending facility, the Momentum Fund. The Momentum Fund has provided €274 million to fund five loan facilities and 1,018 homes. The end date for Momentum Fund approvals was 31 December 2021.

HBFI currently offers five products including for developments under 10 units, for 10 units or above, Apartment Development, Social Housing and the Green Funding Project. The Department of Finance completed a strategic review of HBFI in May 2021. It concluded HBFI is impacting positively on the availability of development finance and should continue to operate at this time.

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