Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I note also the Deputy's question from earlier. Our key planning personnel and the housing delivery team in the Department are looking at all those sites. They look, site by site, at Dublin, Cork and other towns and cities to see how we can activate these sites. They are bringing the various players together and are identifying so-called pathfinder sites. We are actively asking. The Minister, Deputy Coveney, and I have told local authorities that this is what we want to see happening: public and private sites brought together in co-operation. This could be local authorities working with the private sector or with approved housing bodies to bring forward sites that can deliver the mixed tenure that Deputy Coppinger spoke of earlier. That is what we want to achieve. There is great potential and the funding is in place. We have provided other funding to activate these sites with regard to infrastructure.

The potential exists and we are doing a lot of work to co-ordinate this at departmental level. We will see results because there is great potential to deliver thousands of houses on many of the lands that have been identified. The Deputy is right to say the key is to try to activate lands that are available by bringing all the players together, including NAMA and others. I am glad the activity of AHBs - their loan approval and drawdown - has been greatly increased in 2016 compared with 2015, and we expect a similar result in 2017 also. We want to activate all the different measures and, ideally, bring in other resources that are off balance sheet, which is what we are trying to do.

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