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

The delivery of affordable homes to buy or rent is a major priority for the Government, with a particular emphasis on Dublin, Cork and Galway, where people face the greatest affordability challenge. To deliver more affordable homes, the State must develop the full potential of its residential landbank. I stressed this point to local authority chief executives at the second housing summit on 22 January. I have since asked them to submit an outline of their respective affordable housing programme by early March. I anticipate that there is significant potential for the delivery of affordable homes on public lands. I expect approximately 3,000 new affordable homes to be made available under the affordable purchase scheme. As announced in budget 2018, I am providing funding of €25 million over 2018 and 2019 for a targeted programme that will support the provision by local authorities of key enabling infrastructure on their lands to make shovel-ready sites available for affordable housing. My overall ambition is for 10,000 new affordable homes for sale or rent to be provided across a range of initiatives in the coming years. When local authorities have submitted their plans to develop their landbanks for social and wider housing development and the plans have been assessed, I will be in a position to consider delivery targets for affordable housing.

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