Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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515. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the way in which housing waiting lists are to be met in the context of the Land Development Agency operating a 10% ceiling on public owned building land to be used for social housing purposes; his views on whether the waiting list figures indicate a housing boom would be required to meet the demand; if local authorities will be required to acquire building land via the land development agency for the purpose of meeting social housing needs; if acquisitions and rezoning will take place independently of the Land Development Agency; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38319/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The new Land Development Agency, which was established earlier this month, will act as a national centre of expertise, working with and supporting local authorities, public bodies and other interests, to harness public lands as catalysts to stimulate regeneration and wider investment and to achieve compact, sustainable growth, with a particular emphasis on complex regeneration projects, including the provision of social and affordable housing.

To support the work of the LDA, the Government has agreed that in addition to the statutory requirement that 10% of lands being developed for housing purposes be reserved for social housing under Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000 (as amended), there will also be a new requirement requiring that 30% of public lands are reserved for affordable housing purposes, thereby ensuring more housing supply at affordable prices and rents that will progressively ease the demands being placed on our social housing delivery process. Additional social housing supply that becomes available through the activities of the LDA will be subject to the existing social housing allocation systems currently operated by local authorities.

It should be noted that Part V is just one of a range of mechanisms through which a significantly increased level of social housing is being delivered. Overall, over the course of 2016/17, Rebuilding Ireland has supported the delivery of over 12,700 built, bought or long-term leased social housing homes, in addition to a further 32,000 flexible housing solutions delivered under the Housing Assistance Payment and Rental Accommodation Schemes. In total, almost 45,000 individuals and families have had their housing needs met over a 2-year period.

The scale of this delivery has been such that housing waiting lists are falling markedly. Details on the number of households qualified for social housing support in each local authority are provided in the statutory Summary of Social Housing Assessments (SSHA), which has been carried out on an annual basis since 2016. Although the full SSHA 2018 report has not yet been published, the number of qualified households recorded on local authority lists shows a drop from 85,799 in 2017 to 71,858 in 2018, a reduction of over 16% in one year alone.

As regards land acquisition and planning and zoning functions in general, legislation being brought forward later this Autumn for publication in early 2019 will set out the general statutory framework within which the LDA will be expected to operate, including interactions with local authorities and the planning process. However, I have no plans to require that local authorities that may need to acquire building land for social housing purposes would be obliged to do so solely via the LDA. Nonetheless, there will clearly be opportunities for both local authorities and the LDA to work together in implementing Government policy in relation to the planning, housing and sustainable urban development policies contained in Project Ireland 2040 and the National Planning Framework in particular.

Finally, the zoning of land for development purposes is a reserved function of the elected members, which is distinct from the general land and property acquisition functions of local authorities and commercial state bodies, including the Land Development Agency.