Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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1619. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of State owned properties in each county including property owned by local authorities; the acreage of land owned by the State in each county; the acreage of land owned by the State in each county that is suitable for residential construction; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16624/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Office of Public Works (OPW) has the central role in managing the State’s diverse property portfolio, and is responsible for co-ordinating policy in maintaining and efficiently organising the property asset portfolio of the State.  

While my Department does not collate the information sought in relation to lands in the ownership of local authorities, all local authorities are required to record assets, including all land assets, in their annual Statement of Financial Position (Balance Sheet), in accordance with the Local Authority Accounting in Ireland Code of Practice and Accounting Regulations.

The active management of the publicly-owned housing land bank is part of a range of complementary actions being progressed under the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness, designed to accelerate and increase housing output.  Working with local authorities and the Housing Agency, my Department has collated details of local authority lands acquired for housing purposes.  To this end, details of some 1,700 hectares of land in local authority and Housing Agency ownership were published on the Rebuilding Ireland Housing Land Map, with the potential to deliver some 42,500 homes nationally. In addition, 30 sites (covering some 200 hectares), which are owned by State or semi-State bodies and deemed suitable for housing purposes, were also mapped.  These mapped sites can be viewed at the following link: .

Local authorities are also required to confirm and update the data on a quarterly basis to ensure that the information held on this mapping database is fully up to date.

The delivery of additional social and affordable homes, to buy or rent, will rely on the State developing the full potential of its residential land bank. Following the second Housing Summit with local authority Chief Executives in January 2018, local authorities were asked to submit their plans to develop their land bank for social and wider housing development, including an outline of their respective proposed affordable housing programmes and to indicate their social housing delivery for 2018 and 2019-2021. My Department is currently working through these returns and I will be announcing delivery targets for all local authorities shortly.

Finally, from a longer-term strategic perspective, as part of Project Ireland 2040, the Government announced on 16 February its intention to establish a new National Regeneration and Development Agency, which will have a role in managing the State's wider publicly-owned land bank to ensure that overall development needs, including housing, are met. The new Agency will work closely with local authorities, Government Departments, Agencies and other State and semi-State bodies to secure the best use of public lands and ensure the delivery on the objectives of the National Planning Framework and the National Development Plan.