Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)

The vast bulk of the delivery to date under Part V of the Planning and Development Acts 2000-2006 has been in the form of completed homes, land and individual sites. Financial settlements account for only a small share of the delivery and any such moneys received by a planning authority must be used as capital for its functions under Part V or for its functions with regard to the provision of housing under the Housing Acts.

My Department has issued comprehensive guidelines to local authorities on the operation of Part V, including advice on the use of Part V funds. Generally, I favour prioritisation of the funds for the provision of additional social and affordable housing units. Since January 2007, local authorities no longer require the prior sanction of my Department for the expenditure of Part V moneys in certain cases. This delegated sanction set out a number of purposes for which the funds could be utilised, including the purchase of completed turnkey units, acquisition of sites, supplementation of an authority's housing land bank, procuring of additional accommodation units for the rental accommodation scheme and improvements in the general affordability of Part V units.

While I do not propose to remove the discretion available to authorities in the use of such funds, I am determined to ensure that the funds are put to productive use as soon as possible after they have been received. In that regard, my Department has recently advised local authorities that where they have unused Part V funds, these will be taken into account when allocations to authorities for the main social housing programmes are being finalised following a round of meetings with housing authorities which are currently under way. Thereafter, I will continue to keep the issue under review.

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