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

I thank the Deputy for the follow-up questions. LIHAF 1 is about using State money to unlock larger areas of land and housing potential than would have been available had we directly built the houses ourselves. Approximately €200 million will deliver in the region of 20,000 homes. Not every scheme that applied to the fund was successful. There were three successful schemes under LIHAF 1 in Midleton, Carrigaline and Glanmire. As the Deputy knows, there were some particular issues with the Ballincollig bid. That meant the application could not be finalised when I was finalising the projects last year. It was not so much a problem with LIHAF 1 but a local problem that we could not get around at the time.

The fact that we are standing down the possibility of LIHAF phase 2 does not mean we are standing down the possibility of those projects submitted to my Department for funding for the same scheme or for something similar. It is simply that they will now be under the urban regeneration and development fund or the rural regeneration and development fund. These are bigger schemes, with €3 billion between the two funds. That is separate from the €75 million available for affordable housing provision. I will be launching the urban regeneration fund next week. It will be open for applications for three months and will close at the end of September. We will make decisions in October for the first tranche of money to be drawn down from 1 January next year. A total of €100 million will be available next year. Those projects that are shovel-ready will get prioritised. The announcement will be made next week.

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