Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The overall aim of LIHAF is to increase housing supply by removing infrastructural obstacles that were preventing the development of key sites.

A total of 34 projects received preliminary approval in March 2017 and 22 of those have now received final approval. I will be publishing details of these projects shortly. I expect the remaining projects to be considered and approved, if appropriate, in the coming weeks. In any event, all projects have been allowed to proceed to design phase in advance of such approval.

LIHAF has a five-year delivery timeline out to 2021. With most of the infrastructure expected to reach construction phase in 2018, I expect a gradual increase in housing delivery during 2018, with significant increases in the following years as the infrastructure is built, with all of the projected housing, up to 23,000 units if all projects are approved, being delivered by the end of 2021.

Based on current prices in the areas where projects are being advanced, many of the projects outside Dublin will have housing available in the price bracket identified by the Deputy. In Dublin, it is expected that there will be supply of starter two-bedroom apartments and houses at prices under €320,000, with the quantum of these units dependent on the housing mix granted in the planning permissions. Final sales prices will also be dependent on changes in house prices over the intervening period until the homes are delivered.

In many of the projects, local authorities will aggregate LIHAF deductions to provide more affordable housing, under qualifying criteria to be set in line with national policy, which I will be announcing in the coming weeks. Of course, there will also be a social housing dividend from all of the LIHAF sites, together with additional social and affordable housing from the State-owned sites.

In order to make further progress in providing specific affordable housing in price ranges that meet the challenges for those with modest incomes, as part of budget 2018, I announced that a new fund of €25 million will be provided, over 2018 and 2019, to unlock local authority-owned land specifically for the delivery of affordable housing. My Department is currently drawing up the criteria for access to this scheme, which will be announced in the coming weeks.

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