Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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363. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if funding is being provided by any scheme by his Department or agencies under the aegis of his Department to assist developers buy land to enable them to build houses in view of the housing crisis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22567/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I agree that current housing supply problems require a closer alignment between land availability and development capability. The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, however, generally prohibits State Aid, unless it is justified by reasons of general economic development. No funding scheme to assist developers to buy land is either in place or under consideration in my Department.

Nonetheless, as outlined in the Programme for a Partnership Government, the Government is today publishing an Action Plan for Housing which will set out a practical and readily implementable set of actions that will increase annual housing supply to 25,000 units by 2020, and more thereafter, thereby creating a functioning and sustainable housing system. This Action Plan, in tandem with the work already underway on the development of the new 20-year National Planning Framework, will include specific actions designed to address the critical issue of land supply and to ensure an active and healthy market for development land.

In this context, it is envisaged that opportunities for private and social housing development on publicly owned land banks will be advanced under a variety of arrangements.