Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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751. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will consider making funding available for the taking in charge of estates other than ghost estates in circumstances in which the builder has gone bankrupt with no bond in place; if his attention has been drawn to the fact that local authorities are slow to take estates in charge in circumstances in which no bond is in place and works have been left undone; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39136/17]

Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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752. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of housing estates in each county that have not been taken in charge by local authorities for which no bond was in place; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39137/17]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 751 and 752 together.

The taking-in-charge of housing estates is a matter for the relevant local authority.   

Section 180 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 (as amended) provides that in the case of an unfinished estate, where the planning authority has commenced enforcement proceedings within seven years of the expiry of the planning permission or considers that enforcement proceedings will not result in the satisfactory completion of the estate, following a request by the majority of the house-owners, the authority may at its absolute discretion initiate procedures to take in charge the roads and some or all of the other services in the estate.

A planning authority may, for the purposes of section 180, hold a plebiscite to ascertain the wishes of the house-owners. Where bonds are not available or enforceable or are insufficient to cover the costs of repairs or works necessary to achieve a sufficient standard of finish, and the local authority in question wishes to take the relevant estate in charge, then that authority will have to seek alternative sources of funding from its own sources or complementary sources of funding from other stakeholders such as new investors in part-completed developments.  

My Department developed the National Taking-in-Charge Initiative (NTICI) to accelerate the taking-in-charge process of housing developments, taking into account a build-up of pending cases, underpinned by €10 million in funding. Of the funding allocated, €7.7 million was paid to local authorities in respect of 330 developments, containing some 13,400 units.

The NTICI was not intended to establish a rolling annual funding programme to take in charge all estates not yet taken in charge, but was instead intended to develop better local authority, departmental and stakeholder knowledge and systems to support and streamline the taking-in-charge of further estates over time.

Therefore, while there is no corresponding funding line available in 2017, the NTICI highlighted the various roles that local authorities, housing providers, development funders and statutory bodies like Irish Water could play in aiding the taking-in-charge of residential developments.

A report on the NTICI is currently being finalised by my Department which will include findings and recommendations on sustaining progress on the taking-in-charge issue. This will help to inform future taking-in-charge plans.