Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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211. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if his Department or a body under its aegis provides any ongoing independent Government research into construction costs; and his views that implementing such an ongoing review should be a priority. [23217/16]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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In the context of social housing provision, my Department undertakes analysis in respect of the average costs associated with the delivery of a range of differently sized social housing units, both in terms of construction costs and ‘all-in’ costs. These costs are based on an analysis of returned data from local authorities on social housing schemes. Nevertheless, information on the average cost of current social housing developments of various sizes is preliminary at this stage and will be better informed when a greater number of projects have completed the tendering stage over the months ahead. My Department has also input into work led by the Department of Finance in relation to construction costs which was undertaken under the Construction 2020 Strategy. In addition, costs are examined in the context of proposed legislative changes, particularly in relation to Building Regulations.

In accordance with the Programme for a Partnership Government, only yesterday the Government published on 19 July 2016, which sets out a broad range of measures to tackle, among other things, some of the costs associated with the provision of housing in the interests of reducing construction overheads in order to facilitate an increased level of housing output into the future.

In particular, a €200 million Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (LIHAF) will provide much-needed enabling infrastructure on key sites to open up lands for early development. In addition, the NTMA, through the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), is developing proposals to offer competitive financing on a commercial basis, and in line with ISIF’s statutory mandate, to meet other infrastructure requirements on large development sites.

The Action Plan also contains a commitment to undertake a detailed analysis, in conjunction with the construction sector, to benchmark housing delivery input costs in Ireland.