Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

One of the facts of the current situation with housing is the enormous amount of land that has been zoned and the number of planning permissions that have been granted but not acted on. There is no shortage of zoned land or projects that have received planning permission, but the projects have not started. There is a big issue there that needs to be dealt with from a housing provision perspective. Some on the building sites say that there is a viability issue. That needs to be worked out and examined.

There is a broader policy with regard to spatial planning, developing brownfield sites and making sure that we get compact development in cities and in towns so that we utilise existing services and avoid excessive suburban sprawl. That is an important planning consideration. In many of our cities and towns, we have schools with capacity. We have a range of services with capacity. It makes sense to target those areas for additional housing or the refurbishment of existing buildings to provide for residential units. Substantial funding has been provided by Government in the urban regeneration and development fund to enable those areas to have the infrastructural investment to enable housing and apartment developments to take place within cities and towns on a significant scale. There is also a significant investment in water infrastructure, which is vital and has been a barrier to some construction projects.

In respect of county development plans, we do not interfere in the decisions that councillors may take or that councils as a whole, taking advice from their officials, will take in respect of county development plans. I take the Deputy's point that if land is good and serviced, we do not want to take it out of commission either because we need to build as many houses as we possibly can to catch up. Covid-19 has reduced capacity with the lockdown and shutting down of construction, so we need to build on average at least between 33,000 and 35,000 houses a year, as per the ESRI reports, to deal with the housing crisis. We are intent, as a Government, on providing for social housing and also affordable housing, and to give every support that we can to young people to be able to buy their own homes and realise a legitimate aspiration.

The Deputy has raised another part of the equation which I mentioned at the start of my response. There is the issue of a hell of a lot of land which has received planning permission but where little has happened. That is a concern.

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