Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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111. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if he will provide the information his Department has on the percentage of land zoned for residential development in Dublin that is wholly or partly owned or controlled by private equity funds. [40265/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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In 2014, my Department, in conjunction with local authority planning departments, carried out a national survey of all lands zoned for residential development in statutory local authority development plans and local area plans across Ireland.

This exercise, the Residential Land Availability Survey 2014, which is available on my Department’s website at the following link: , determined the location and quantity of lands that may be regarded as being undeveloped and available for residential development purposes at 31 March 2014. The results of the Survey indicated that there was 17,434 hectares of residential zoned lands nationally which could theoretically enable the construction of over 414,000 dwellings.

The mapped results of the survey are available on my Department’s website at the following link: .

However, my Department does not collect information on land ownership, particularly in relation to privately owned lands, and a breakdown of the above results according to ownership type was not sought as part of the survey exercise. Notwithstanding this, my Department is actively pursuing the progression of housing developments on State -owned lands, including local authority lands, as a major part of the new approach to housing provision under Rebuilding Ireland - Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness.

The Action Plan contains a number of integrated actions to underpin land supply management, including the development of a national Land Supply Management Strategy, within the context of the new National Planning Framework. This will involve identifying and mapping sites in local authority and public ownership, with appropriate lands to be master-planned to deliver increased mixed-tenure housing, including social and more affordable housing.

It is intended that a further Residential Land Availability Survey will be undertaken in 2017.