Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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1016. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the new guidelines his Department is issuing in regard to local housing assessments needs in each local authority under the new National Planning Framework; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11908/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The National Planning Framework (NPF) was published by Government on 16 February 2018, alongside the National Development Plan 2018-2027 as part of Project Ireland 2040.

The NPF sets out an ambitious high-level, national vision for Ireland for 2040, and provides the framework and principles to manage future population and economic growth over the next 20 years, including the need for an additional 550,000 homes to cater for an extra 1 million people. Key to addressing and successfully meeting the need for the additional homes is a requirement for a robust methodology to inform policies and funding initiatives around housing and associated land requirements. In this regard, the NPF provides for a Housing Need Demand Assessment (HNDA) to be developed by each local authority to support the preparation of housing strategies and all related housing policy outputs, e.g. city and county development plans, local area plans, traveller accommodation plans etc.

The HNDA is to be undertaken by local authorities with coordination assistance to be provided by the Regional Assemblies, and also at a metropolitan scale, particularly where inter-county and inter-regional settlement interactions are to be planned for and managed.

As set out in the NPF, there are a number of key evidence inputs which inform and drive the HNDA model, including information on demographic, affordability and wider economic trends, coupled to the profile of the existing housing stock and its management.

Recognising the critical role that the local government sector will have in the ongoing implementation of the Framework, including the preparation of the HNDA, my Department is currently running a series of workshops to ensure that those local authority officials involved in planning matters are fully informed in relation the content of the framework into the  implementation phase.

My Department will also monitor the need for any guidance to assist in the roll-out of the approach, updating existing guidance on housing strategies prepared under Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000 (as amended).