Mr. Barry Quinlan:

I will go through the questions in the order I have them. On the new housing plan, the Minister has signalled his intent to have that ready in the summer. Work has commenced on it. It will be a cross-government plan. Within the Department, the teams are in place to review Rebuilding Ireland and to prepare the information, etc., for the new plan. That work is under way with a timeline of the summer. At the same time, the review of the national development plan is under way. Again, the Department is inputting into that in terms of future investment in social, affordable and other forms of housing on a multi-annual basis.

With maximum funding of €50,000 available per home, around 6,200 homes could be facilitated under the serviced sites fund. So far, more than 3,000 homes have been facilitated across 14 different local authorities on the basis of the €50,000 maximum funding. To date, around half of the fund has been approved in principle. The Minister has approved a number of sites more recently, including St. Michael's and other sites in Dublin.

On the local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, I will bring in my colleague, Mr. Nicholson, when I have responded to the other questions.

On Part V, a review was signalled as an objective in the programme for Government. It has been carried out by the Housing Agency and is now under consideration in the Department. Again, depending on what changes come about as a result of that, there will be an impact on affordable housing plans going forward.

In respect of the local authority equity scheme and the eligibility piece on that, the plan is to change that from what is currently in the 2009 Act to a more workable solution which will be based on individual ability to buy a home. It is trying to link the eligibility in terms of income to an individual's ability to buy the home that is available from the local authority. The local connection piece is a simplification, more broadly, in respect of who would be eligible.

On the issue of repayments, the overall objective of the equity schemes we are bringing forward is that people will own their homes. They are help-to-buy schemes. Therefore, the sooner people can buy out the equity share and own their homes in full, depending on how house prices go, the sooner it can be of benefit to people. That is an objective. In other schemes and in international comparison, we have seen significant buy-out in the first five years, so that people own their homes fully.

With the Chair's agreement, I will ask Mr. Nicholson to respond on the LIHAF.

Could Mr. Nicholson please cover the Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund, LIHAF?