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

Under the Government's Rebuilding Ireland action plan, a particular priority attaches to using publicly owned lands for the delivery of housing as quickly as possible. In particular, we need more homes for families and individuals on the social housing waiting list and for those on low to middle incomes.

Increasing and accelerating housing delivery to meet demand across the full spectrum of housing needs is at the heart of Rebuilding Ireland. In terms of social housing, the clear commitment is to deliver 47,000 additional social houses supported by €5.35 billion in Exchequer resources.  Other initiatives such as the recent announcement of €225 million of targeted funding to support the delivery of infrastructure to open up both public and private lands for development will help to stimulate wider residential construction activity and bring more new homes to the market.

In terms of State lands, delivering the most housing in the shortest possible timeframe will be supported by the acceleration in State-funded social housing and will also provide more homes for sale and rent at lower and more affordable price points. The scale and mix of housing on individual sites will be dependent on the sites themselves, particularly their scale and the wider housing context in which they are located.  In regard to the site referred to by the Deputy, I understand that the council intends to develop a fully integrated, mixed tenure community in the area, including a large element of social housing.  The final breakdown of the tenure mix will be determined as part of the master-planning process and my Department will work closely with Fingal County Council in considering any proposals ultimately brought forward by the council.

Those proposals will be voted on by the local authority members. In respect of other sites in Dublin, they have made quite wise decisions about trying to develop them and bring forward a mix of private and social housing and affordable properties, and rightly so. That will really benefit the community. There are other land banks in the Fingal County Council area on which it will bring forward major plans which we will support. We are very strong on this ambition to have mixed use tenure and I think it is something the Deputy would like to support.

See this speech in context