Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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38. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the work ongoing to develop a policy to expedite the taking in charge of housing estates with developer provided water services infrastructure; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26863/18]

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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The taking-in-charge of housing developments is a matter for the relevant local authority under section 180 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 (as amended). My Department launched the National Taking-in-Charge Initiative (NTICI) in April 2016 to trial new approaches and working methods in supporting and accelerating overall national and local action on the taking-in-charge process of housing estates, including estates with developer-provided water services infrastructure (DPI).

Under the terms of the NTICI, which was underpinned by €10m in funding, developments subject to valid taking-in-charge applications were eligible for inclusion in the associated call for funding proposals.  Ultimately, €7.7 million of the allocated funding was paid to local authorities in respect of 330 developments, containing some 13,400 homes.

Findings and recommendations from the NTICI process will be included in a report on the initiative that I intend to publish shortly. The publication of the NTICI report will be of value to local authorities and other stakeholders in applying the lessons from the pilot authorities, in a more general roll-out of a streamlined approach to taking-in-charge.  I expect that the initiative will contribute to further streamlining of the taking-in-charge process, through, for example, securing coordination with capital works by Irish Water. 

In addition, the recently published National Development Plan includes provision of €31 million for the period 2018-2021 for developer-provided infrastructure. This is clear evidence of the Government's commitment to transition from the pilot phase under NTICI to a programme phase, commencing with an estimates provision of €3m in 2018 on which further details will be announced in due course.