Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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77. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the extent to which he is in a position to augment and accelerate the housing for all programme with a view to making serious impact on the number of families seeking to avail of local authority or affordable housing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [59779/22]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Housing for All is the Government’s plan to increase the supply of housing to an average of 33,000 per year over the next decade. This includes the delivery of 90,000 social homes, 36,000 affordable purchase homes and 18,000 cost rental homes. Housing for All is supported by an investment package of over €4bn per annum, through an overall combination of €12bn in direct Exchequer funding, €3.5bn in funding through the Land Development Agency (LDA) and €5bn funding through the Housing Finance Agency.

Under Housing for All, the Government will deliver 47,600 new build social homes, 3,500 social homes through long-term leasing and 28,500 new affordable homes in the period 2022-2026.

In implementing the key objectives under Housing for All, each local authority has prepared and published a Housing Delivery Action Plan in respect of local authority supported or overseen delivery from 2022 to 2026. I have set individual five-year Housing delivery targets for local authorities. 18 local authorities with a strong and identified affordable housing need were also set affordable housing delivery targets and asked to include their planned affordable housing delivery in their Housing Delivery Action Plans.

2022 represents the commencement of a very ambitious programme of delivery of affordable housing. This momentum will continue with delivery significantly increasing in 2023. A pipeline of housing delivery is in place and being developed by local authorities, by approved housing bodies and by the LDA.

The Housing for All Action Plan Update was published on 2 November 2022. The section entitled “Planning the required number of homes”, sets out the Government’s approach to reviewing current targets and projections including the refreshing of the overall national housing targets and the subsets of social, affordable and market delivery, having regard to progress already made, to ensure that the overall housing need is met in line with the original vision of Housing for All.

With regard to social and affordable housing, the annual national delivery targets summarised above were published in Housing for All (Figure 3, page 32) for the year 2022 to 2030 inclusive. Overall targets for local authority delivery of social and affordable housing will be revised per the approach set out above.

Housing for All: A New Housing Plan for Ireland (September 2021) and the Housing for All Action Plan Update (November 2022) can be accessed on my Department’s website at the respective links:

www.gov.ie/en/publication/ef5ec-housing-for-all-a-new-housing-plan-for-ireland/.

www.gov.ie/en/publication/da0d1-action-plan-update-and-q3-2022-progress-report/.