Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The development of publicly owned residential lands for social and affordable housing is a top priority for this Government, particularly in Dublin and other large urban areas, where housing access and affordability pressures are greatest. To support this objective, all local authority and Housing Agency lands available for housing have been mapped and can be viewed on the Rebuilding Ireland website at the following link: .

My Department is working with all local authorities, including in the Greater Dublin area, in order to bring forward suitable sites for social and affordable housing. There is now a significant pipeline of social housing construction projects, the latest details of which are available at the following link: .

In order to support local authorities further to prepare their sites for affordable housing, the Government recently committed, under Budget 2019, to provide €310 million under the Serviced Sites Fund (SSF) over the period 2019 to 2021. The funding is available for key facilitating infrastructure on local authority sites, to support the provision of affordable homes to purchase or rent.

A first call for proposals under the Fund issued to the four Dublin local authorities; Kildare, Meath, Wicklow, Louth and Cork County Councils, and Cork and Galway City Councils. Fifteen proposals were received, from nine of the local authorities targeted under this first call and I expect to announce funding decisions in relation to those applications shortly. I expect infrastructure works on approved projects to begin as soon as possible thereafter and delivery of affordable homes from late 2019/early 2020 onwards.

More broadly, all local authorities are carrying out economic assessments of the requirement for affordable housing in their areas and the viability to deliver such affordable housing from their sites. My Department hosted a workshop for local authorities last week to discuss these issues. Further bilateral engagement between local authorities and my Department will now follow with a view to progressing further social and affordable projects on council lands.

A second call for proposals under the Fund will be made shortly. The scope of that call will be influenced by the information received from local authorities, as part of the aforementioned assessments, which they have been requested to submit by 30 November.

Finally, the new Land Development Agency (LDA) will contribute significantly to the delivery of affordable housing. All of the State land developed by the LDA will include 40% social and affordable homes to purchase or rent.