Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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559. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the number of unfinished housing estates in each county, with malfunctioning private sewerage treatment plants; and the number of affected houses in each county, in tabular form. [24676/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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While the level of detail requested by the Deputy is not currently available, I have set out information below in relation both to the National Taking in Charge Initiative (NTICI) for residential estates and the most recent figures in relation to the number of unfinished housing estates. The National Taking in Charge Initiative (NTICI) for residential estates, and the pilot scheme funding of €10m, were announced in April 2016. Its aim is to accelerate the taking-in-charge process of housing estates, including estates with developer-provided water services infrastructure. The initiative draws upon data gathered from each of the 31 local authorities and collated by my Department in December 2015. The data collected indicated that at that time, there were approximately 5,566 completed housing developments nationally which were not in the charge of local authorities. This was as a result of both high rates of estate development over the past decade or so, and the success in resolving around 2,000 formerly unfinished housing developments, many of which are now awaiting taking in charge.

The information collected suggests that of the 5,566 developments yet to be taken in charge, there are approximately 914 estates with developer-provided infrastructure (DPI) and work is continuing on finalising this figure. This infrastructure is mainly located within rural counties and the table below sets out the number of developments with DPIs per County and the number of associated housing units. It should be noted that not all of these are malfunctioning.

Separately, the Unfinished Housing Developments survey, first carried out in 2010, is an annual survey conducted at a specific point in time of developments that have ‘unfinished’ housing units. Since 2010, the number of unfinished housing developments has decreased by approximately three-quarters, from nearly 3,000 in 2010 to 668 in 2015. The survey provides a breakdown of unfinished housing developments across local authority areas and, together with annual progress reports and other useful publications and information in relation to Unfinished Housing Developments, is available on the Housing Agency’s website at:.

Arrangements to carry out the 2016 survey are well advanced.