Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 6 October 2020
366. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage his plans for the development of private sites as a means of ameliorating the housing shortage by county taking into account the specific needs of each county; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28797/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraThis Government is absolutely committed to ensuring that affordable, quality housing solutions are available to everyone in Irish society and this is reflected in the Programme for Government "Our Shared Future".
The Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (LIHAF) is primarily designed to fund the provision of public off-site infrastructure to relieve critical infrastructure blockages and enable housing developments to be built on key private sites at scale. LIHAF is designed to specifically address the issue of housing supply, which is a crucial factor in terms of moderating house prices.
Thirty projects received final LIHAF approval, in late 2017 and early 2018, with an overall budget of €195.7m, of which €146.8m will be Exchequer funded, with the remainder funded via local authorities. Details of the approvals by local authority area, budget allocation, project description and projected housing delivery are available at www.rebuildingireland.ie/LIHAF.
My colleague, the Minister for Finance established the Home Building Finance Ireland (HBFI) as a commercial entity in January 2019. Its function is to assist in the delivery of new homes by providing funding for residential development projects throughout the country. For the period up to July 2020, €340 million has been approved to support the delivery of 1,477 new homes, 66% of which will be private housing units. Full details are contained in the HBFI annual report published in July 2020, which includes the locations of all approved projects, and which is available at: https://www.hbfi.ie/
In terms of the specific housing needs of each county, National Policy Objective 37 of the National Planning Framework refers to local authorities undertaking a ‘Housing Needs and Demand Assessment’ (HNDA) for their area. The undertaking of such an assessment will inform the making of the local authority Housing Strategy which in turn feeds into the Development Plan for their county and will frame the requirement for housing development overall across tenure types. My Department is currently working on the development of a HNDA tool and framework which will assist local authorities to accurately and consistently project future housing demand in their own area.
