Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Question 140: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the nature of the current talks with developers regarding the provision of 30,000 social and affordable houses over the next four years; the persons who are involved in the talks; the progress made to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3896/05]

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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While my Department has not received a proposal for the delivery of social and affordable housing on the precise lines indicated in the question, it is assumed that reference is being made to a proposal made during the course of last year by a group of builders-developers. These builders-developers presented their proposals to a sub-group of the cross-departmental team on housing, infrastructure and PPP, which mainly comprised officials from my Department and the Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Finance. The IHBA was also represented at the meeting.

Consistent with the Government's objective of prioritising the accelerated delivery of social and affordable housing, a number of partnership arrangements have been developed already with the building industry to deliver social and affordable housing to positive effect. These have ranged from individual contracts to deliver mixed developments to more formal arrangements under Part V, which provide a mechanism for the delivery of social and affordable housing. The new Sustaining Progressaffordable housing initiative also involves PPP type arrangements with builders-developers.

Consultation is maintained with the industry on the implementation of these initiatives and this has produced some worthwhile suggestions which my Department and-or local authorities have acted upon.

My Department is now considering the issues raised by the latest proposal from a group of builders-developers. This consideration and wider housing policy delivery issues will be informed by the recent NESC study on housing and the report of the managers of the four Dublin local authorities, with input from other local authorities in the wider Dublin metropolitan area, who established a special task force to advise on accelerating the supply of affordable housing in the capital.