Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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279. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the detail of the circumstances surrounding the purchase of a site by a local authority (details supplied), including the costs of the site and the timeline for its intended use; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5841/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The purchase of the site concerned, including the amount the local authority paid for the site and the timeline for its intended use, are matters in the first place for the local authority.

The most common approach in recent years for local authorities to acquire land, especially for housing purposes, was to obtain loan finance from the Housing Finance Agency. The process for a local authority obtaining such loan finance involved, firstly, the authority obtaining a Council resolution authorising the borrowing, followed by an approval request being submitted to my Department. Such an approval request to my Department was important to allow the proposed loan to be considered in the context of the need for the local government sector to avoid impacting negatively on the General Government Balance in any one year and to consider whether the finances of the local authority are likely to be sufficiently robust to enable them to service the borrowing sought.

In this case, my Department issued approval in December 2007 for the local authority’s proposal, as supported by their Council’s resolution, for the borrowing of €10.5 million to acquire the land. More recently, my Department has received an application from the local authority to develop part of this site with 23 new social housing units. This application was received in late December 2016 and is now being assessed by my Department.