I propose to take Questions Nos. 678, 679, 680, 681 and 682 together.
Over the period to 2030, the Government's Housing for All strategy commits to delivering a total of 18,000 Cost Rental homes. Delivery will increase incrementally, to an average of 2,000 Cost Rental homes per year. 10,000 Cost Rental homes will be delivered from 2021 to 2026 by Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), Local Authorities and the Land Development Agency (LDA). AHBs will be supported by Cost Rental Equity Loan (CREL) funding and Local Authorities will be able to avail of funding for Cost Rental delivery through the Affordable Housing Fund (AHF). The LDA will also deliver Cost Rental on its own portfolio of sites or through acquisitions under Project Tosaigh.
Local authorities have been asked to begin collating information on delivery of affordable homes in their area in the same manner as is currently done for social housing. It is intended that information on delivery across all delivery streams, including AHB delivery and LDA delivery, will be gathered by my Department and I expect that my Department will be in a position to begin reporting on affordable delivery in national quarterly delivery statistics later this year. A pipeline of affordable housing delivery is also being developed by local authorities.
Approval has been confirmed for approximately 900 Cost Rental homes to be delivered by AHBs under the CREL scheme in the period to 2023. The necessary financial and commercial arrangements in relation to a number of these projects are being completed by the AHBs concerned and full details will be made public as arrangements are concluded.
Opportunities for the development of Cost Rental homes are managed as they arise by the individual providers. The amount of CREL loan funding drawn down by AHBs in Quarter 1 and 2 of 2022 came to a total of €10,186,729.00. In addition the project in Enniskerry Road delivering 50 homes and outlined above received c €4.5m in support from the Department's Serviced Sites Fund.
In addition to homes funded through the CREL, additional Cost Rental properties are in development by Local Authorities through the AHF. The central Exchequer funding through the AHF will help to facilitate a Local Authority-led financing structure for Cost Rental, which will provide important opportunities for Local Authorities to directly delivery Cost Rental homes on their own lands, such as at Emmet Road in Dublin City.
In respect of the LDA, details of the work that the LDA is progressing on public lands that will deliver affordable purchase and cost rental can be found here: lda.ie/projects-schemes/
IThe LDA will also deliver Cost Rental under Project Tosaigh a market engagement initiative to unlock land with full planning permission that is not being developed by private sector owners. Full details of the initiative can be found here: lda.ie/home-building-partnership/