Ms Margaret Geraghty:

I will address Deputy Coppinger's concerns and I will ask my colleague, Ms Egan, to discuss some of the specifics relating to the Church Fields development. Fingal has a housing list with many people on it, although it has reduced in recent times. It is a matter of record that we have provided 3,422 units of social housing since 2015 and, from that number, 979 homeless families had their homeless circumstances alleviated. It is important to contextualise that. Some of the key elements of the homelessness issue relate to the fact that people in Fingal are experiencing vulnerability with respect to lettings in the private rental sector. Approximately 70% of the people who come to our housing office find themselves in a homeless situation relating to a notice to quit. It is something we are working to address.

I can give some summary numbers for our plan for the various landbanks we have. We have set out in our report the landbanks we are bringing forward for development over the next few years. We are looking at delivering a mixture of between 1,700 social and 1,700 affordable units. There is a very real need for us to have an affordable housing scheme and for details to emerge with respect to the cost rental scheme. We look forward to both of those emerging and that will assist us in how Fingal puts together its own affordable scheme.

Currently in Fingal, the Rebuilding Ireland loan is proving very popular because house prices in the area are at a certain point. There is quite a bit of private development going on, with more than 72 private sites under development. There is considerable interest from people who are low to middle-income earners in Fingal who can avail of a Rebuilding Ireland loan and who can purchase a house. As we move towards trying to work to mixed tenure communities, I see the Rebuilding Ireland loan, as well as a forthcoming affordable housing scheme, being of benefit to us.

In terms of overall funding by the council, particularly with housing as a key priority for Fingal County Council, 63% of our overall capital budget is focused on housing, with 27% of the overall revenue budget focused on housing. There is a significant commitment on behalf of the executive and members in Fingal towards funding the housing programme. Professor Norris raised matters in her presentation, and we provide a significant pot of funding from our rents each year for the maintenance and improvement of our housing stock. We have a range of cyclical maintenance programmes that have been ongoing over recent years and they will continue in future. Fingal has increased its overall housing stock by 64% since 2006. With regard to the rent yield and ongoing maintenance and improvement of stock into the future, our continued contribution from our revenue budget into a sinking fund to maintain our stock is a key priority.

With respect to timelines for development, one of the big issues facing Fingal and the land it owns has been infrastructural constraint. This means roads, water, waste and green open space community infrastructure. In short, it is infrastructure in the broadest sense, so I am not just talking about one road. If we are to bring sites to the market that can achieve the density that these kinds of landbanks can provide to the housing system and that will be required of us in terms of meeting overall density requirements for housing, we must look at ways of being able to bring a product to the market that can be built at a sustainable price and sold at an affordable purchase level for people seeking their first homes in many cases. The announcement on the serviced sites fund has been very important in this regard. We were asked if we had specifically made an application in that regard. We put in four applications to the serviced sites fund totalling €18 million. We are very optimistic we will get funding, and Church Fields in Deputy Coppinger's constituency is our primary site with respect to the serviced sites fund.