Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful to the Leas-Chathaoirleach for the selection of this Commencement matter. I warmly welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Damien English, to the House. He is always very welcome and it is always good to see him. I thank him for taking up my invitation to make a statement on the possible further expansion of the local infrastructure housing activation fund, or LIHAF, scheme. It would be hard to have learned much about the scheme as it has not kicked in to any great extent yet. However, LIHAF was rightly identified by the then Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, the Minister of State, Deputy English, and their officials as a way to address, as part of Rebuilding Ireland, the shortage of critical infrastructure necessary and bring on large sites that could deliver significant housing capacity.

We all know we have a housing crisis in and we do not need to rehearse that discussion. All of the experts suggest we need to build approximately 30,000 houses, which is an ambitious but necessary target to achieve through mixed delivery of housing. It is a real need. LIHAF was introduced to develop infrastructure and the Government announced its support for the scheme. When the package was initially rolled out under Rebuilding Ireland, the Government's press release referred to funding of €226 million for strategic infrastructure through LIHAF, the delivery of 23,000 houses by 2021 and 34 high impact delivery projects across 15 local authorities.

The major concern being expressed now, in particular in the feedback from the 15 local authorities, is about affordability. That will always present a problem. In the area in which I live in south County Dublin, Cherrywood received the largest tranche of funding under the LIHAF scheme. Most of the units that will be provided there will be build-to-let. As such, the real concern is about how we can ensure a decent return and value for the expenditure of Government money on critical infrastructure. How can we assure people and give them the confidence that this contribution will feed into affordable housing? Every day, I meet couples who are working professionals but who cannot secure funding or affordability in housing.

There is a possibility under tranche 2 of the scheme, which the Minister of State has previously indicated that he was considering. I would like the Minister of State to consider with his colleagues in the coming weeks the opportunity which may arise to ensure that the next block of LIHAF funding is directed to local authority or State lands. National inventories and audits are being carried out of State-owned lands held by the HSE, the OPW and other agencies. There are vast banks of public land owned by local authorities, which they tell me they cannot bring into use.We should direct the next tranche of LIHAF funding to State lands to bring about conditional affordable housing.