The first call for proposals under the Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (LIHAF) was issued to all local authorities in August 2016 and 34 projects received preliminary approval in March 2017.
Fingal County Council submitted four projects under the call in October 2016, including a distributor road in Donabate, an access road in Oldtown/Mooretown, road updgrade, wetlands and park in Baldoyle Stapolin and a distributor road in Barnhill. Funding was approved for three of these projects in the amount of €26.58m. However, while the Barnhill project was assessed as meriting funding, it was not possible to include this project in the March 2017 approvals, within the overall limited level of funding available.
As part of Budget 2018, I announced an additional €50 million funding which will be available for a second LIHAF call and which will again be subject to matching funding of 25% by local authorities. This capital funding will facilitate the provision of more public infrastructure to unlock further sites and activate more housing supply.
A further call for proposals under LIHAF is likely early in 2018 and it will be open to all local authorities to submit new projects or resubmit previous unsuccessful projects for consideration at that time.