Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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310. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the initial sites selected for the scheme following the €25 million serviced sites fund announced in budget 2018 as reflected in a statement (details supplied) by local authority and location; the number of homes targeted; the site on which construction has started for such affordable homes; the number of homes involved to date; and the amount of funding sanctioned for each local authority for initial sites provided for affordable housing from the fund in tabular form. [11108/19]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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311. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the development and construction status of each local authority site for affordable housing under the serviced sites fund announcement as per a statement (details supplied) in tabular form. [11109/19]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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312. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the status of each of the five local authority sites that were previously under active consideration for affordable housing under the serviced sites fund as per an announcement (details supplied). [11110/19]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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313. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of direct meetings he or his officials have had with each local authority in 2018 and to date in 2019 regarding the call for proposals with regard to the affordable housing serviced sites fund since circular APH 1/2018 issued, in tabular form. [11111/19]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 310 to 313, inclusive, together.

In order to support the affordable housing programmes of local authorities, the Government has committed €310 million, over the three years 2019 to 2021, under the Serviced Sites Fund (SSF) announced as part of Budget 2019. The funding is available for key facilitating infrastructure, on public lands, to support the provision of affordable homes to purchase or rent. I envisage a maximum amount of SSF funding of €50,000 per affordable home and on this basis, at least 6,200 affordable homes could be facilitated.

On 11 December 2018, I issued approval in principle for ten infrastructure projects across five local authority areas, in Dublin and Cork, under the first call for proposals. The first tranche of funding of €43 million will enable delivery of 1,400 affordable homes on local authority lands. I expect infrastructure works on these projects to begin as soon as possible in 2019 and delivery of affordable homes from 2020 onwards. Details of the projects are set out in Table 1.

There are five further projects under active consideration by my Department, with the potential to facilitate the delivery of an additional 230 affordable homes. Details of these sites are set out in Table 2.

All local authorities have been requested to carry out economic assessments of the requirement for affordable housing in their areas and the viability to deliver such affordable housing from their sites. As part of the process my Department hosted a workshop for local authorities on 8th November 2018,  to discuss these issues. A second call for proposals under the SSF 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.

An important factor in the allocation of funding under the SSF is the capacity to translate that funding into a discount on the affordable homes. In addition, local authorities must consider the market price of similar homes on sale locally in the private market and the level of discount on market price envisaged, which will be required under the Affordable Purchase Scheme terms. The objective is to maximise the benefits from public money by funding the best value for money proposals possible. My Department continues to engage pro-actively with local authorities regarding these issues and meets with local authorities, individually and collectively, in a range of different formations, on a regular basis, in relation to their housing programmes. In the coming weeks, officials from my Department will be meeting with the local authorities who received approval under the first call in relation to the development of these sites.  

Table 1: List of (ten) proposals that have received approval in principle

Table 2: List of (five) proposals still under active consideration at this stage