Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Representatives of Kildare county. I thank the Deputy for raising the matter and providing the opportunity to discuss the Maynooth project under the local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy.

As the Deputy will be aware, in 2016, the Government approved 30 LIHAF projects that then received final approval in late 2017 and early 2018. Summary details of these projects and the projected housing to be delivered were made available in March 2018 and are published on the Rebuilding Ireland website at .

LIHAF is designed to activate housing supply by putting in place enabling public infrastructure by unlocking lands to facilitate large-scale development on key sites. Infrastructure being funded under LIHAF includes access roads, distributor roads, link roads, road improvements, roundabouts, bridges and parks. The 30 infrastructure projects are expected to provide infrastructure for the delivery thereafter of 20,000 housing units. Approximately 5,600 or 28% of these will be social or affordable, another 5,600 will have a cost reduction on open market prices, and the remainder will be sold at market rates. A total of 1,489 housing units have been delivered to date under LIHAF, and this is expected to rise to more than 6,000 by the end of 2020.

LIHAF funding of €14.5 million has been made to support a roads project in Maynooth - 75% grant funding of €10.88 million matched by 25% local authority funding. The project comprises the construction of a 1.5 km section of roadway linking the Dublin Road and the Straffan Road in Maynooth, improvement works at the junction of the Straffan, Leixlip and Celbridge roads, a new railway bridge and a new canal bridge. The road will also include a cycleway, footpaths on both sides of the road and a number of roundabouts along the route of the road, which will help to control traffic speed. This project allows for significant development to take place in Maynooth.

The project is currently at route selection stage and was approved by the council in July 2019. The consultants are working with Kildare County Council and have produced a route selection report. Compulsory purchase order, CPO, documentation is being progressed in parallel by Kildare County Council and is expected to be published by early December 2019. Kildare County Council has confirmed to the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government that the infrastructure works will be ready to go to tender in the first quarter of 2020, subject to approval by the Department, with an award of tender in the second quarter of 2020. Construction duration is estimated at 18 months, which will see the infrastructure completed by the fourth quarter of 2021.

Regarding the housing to be delivered, a strategic housing development application for LIHAF housing is due to be lodged by the developer at the end of November 2019. Subject to planning approval, the developer expects to be on site by mid-2020 to coincide with the commencement of the infrastructure works.

Under LIHAF, 800 additional homes will be delivered in Maynooth, including 720 cost reduced units over the span of the project with a cost reduction of €18,000 per cost reduced unit.

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