Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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613. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the amount raised in development levy contributions in each of the years 2001 to 2017, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5529/18]

Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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616. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the total and long-term amount due in development levies to each local authority, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5584/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 613 and 616 together.

Local authorities operate on an accrual accounting basis and recognise income and expenditure as incurred relating to the period it falls due, regardless of the cash transactions.  The annual financial statements, AFSs, of local authorities do not show the annual receipts from development contributions but instead show the gross invoiced income before any income deferral or refund schemes are accounted for. They also show the amount of development contributions due to local authorities, exclusive of any bad debt provision.  

Summary information in relation to aggregated accounts for the local government sector for 2015 (the most recent year for which aggregated accounts are available) can be found on my Department’s website at: f. The total amount falling due for collection within 12 months can be found in Note 5, Trade Debtors and Prepayments, on page 20.

With effect from 1 January 2014, Irish Water has responsibility for both water supply and waste water services, including the collection of any charges that may be associated with the provision of these services. Amounts invoiced and collected by local authorities in respect of water services prior to this date were subsequently paid over to Irish Water, but still appear as income in the year in which the payment to the local authority became due.

The more detailed information requested is not available in my Department.  However, my Department is in the process of reviewing management information being collected from the local government sector generally, including in respect of development contributions, and may make some changes to the requirements in this regard in the coming year, following consultation with local authority directors of finance.

Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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614. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the status of Government policy on the use of development levies in encouraging construction levels; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5530/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Development contributions provide critical resources to facilitate the provision of essential public infrastructure and facilities that support the implementation of local authority development plans.

My role as Minister with regard to development contributions is to provide the necessary statutory and policy framework within which individual development contribution schemes are adopted by each local authority. The adoption of these schemes is a reserved function of the locally elected members of each planning authority, and it is a matter for the members to determine the level of contribution and the types of development to which they will apply. 

I am satisfied that the existing statutory and policy framework in this regard strikes the right balance between ensuring a transparent and broadly consistent levying of development contributions across the country, while also affording each local authority sufficient flexibility and discretion in the application of development contributions within their own respective functional areas.

Stimulating residential construction activity through targeted interventions on development contributions has already been examined by my Department. In this regard, a development contribution rebate scheme was announced in November 2015, the primary objective of which was to enhance the viability of the construction and sale of residential housing units at affordable prices in  locations of greatest need.

Take-up under the scheme was however relatively low, and it has since been overtaken by the introduction of the Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund, LIHAF, which is designed to provide upfront enabling infrastructure to open up strategic lands for early development.  Under Phase 1 of the fund, 29 projects have now been approved across 14 local authorities with a total value of €177 million, with the potential to facilitate the delivery of up to 18,000 new homes from these sites over the coming years.  I expect a further project, involving €20m of investment supporting 2,000 new homes, to be approved shortly. A further Phase 2 of the Fund will be launched later in Q1 this year, with a further €65 million available to open up more residential sites for development.

Further initiatives in relation to development contributions are being considered in relation to delivering on the “compact urban growth” objective set out in the draft National Planning Framework, particularly in the context of appropriate levels of contributions for infill or brownfield redevelopment, where many of the infrastructural services are already in place.