Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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291. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the total number of cost rental and affordable purchase homes that have been delivered to date via Croí Cónaithe cities, affordable housing fund, Project Tosaigh, IDA new builds, cost-rental equity loan and, the serviced sites fund, broken down by cost of rent or buy and location in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [61682/22]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Under Housing for All, the Government will deliver 54,000 affordable homes between by 2030, to be facilitated by local authorities, Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), the Land Development Agency (LDA) and through a strategic partnership between the State and retail banks.

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. 18 local authorities with a strong and identified affordable housing need were asked to include their planned affordable housing delivery in their Action Plans. I have also set individual five-year Affordable Housing delivery targets for those local authorities.

2022 represents the commencement of a very ambitious programme of delivery of affordable housing. A pipeline of affordable housing delivery is being developed by local authorities, by Approved Housing Bodies using the Cost Rental Equity Loan and by the Land Development Agency. Furthermore, local authorities have been begun collating information on their delivery of affordable homes as well as the AHB sector in their area in the same manner as is currently done for social housing. It is intended that information on delivery across all delivery streams will be gathered by my Department and I expect that my Department will be in a position to begin reporting on affordable delivery for 2022 in the national quarterly delivery statistics in Q1 2023.

The LDA has an immediate focus on managing the State’s own lands to develop new homes, and regenerate under-utilised sites. In the longer-term, it will assemble strategic land-banks from a mix of public and private lands making these available for housing, which is expected to bring essential more long-term stability to the Irish housing market.

The LDA is also tasked with unlocking stalled private, planning-consented developments in the shorter-term through its market engagement initiative - Project Tosaigh. An expressions of interest process was launched at the end of 2021, and the LDA now has a pipeline of projects anticipated to deliver affordable for sale and cost rental homes. The LDA recently launched a renewed expressions of interest process under Project Tosaigh seeking proposals from the homebuilding sector for the forward purchase of unbuilt residential units. Work is underway in assessing proposals submitted. Details of current LDA developments on public land and Project Tosaigh can be found at www.lda.ie

The LDA has also been asked to begin collating information on its delivery of affordable homes. It is intended that this information will be reported along with national quarterly delivery statistics for local authorities and AHBs.

The Croí Cónaithe (Cities) Scheme is a scheme to support viability. The fund supports the building of apartments for sale to owner-occupiers and aims to bridge the current “Viability Gap” between the cost of building apartments and the market sale price (where the cost of building is greater). Details of the scheme, which was launched in May and will likely see delivery from 2024 onwards, can be found here www.gov.ie/en/publication/883b1-croi-conaithe-cities-scheme/

In relation to the First Home Scheme, the First Home DAC is responsible for the operation, and official reporting on behalf of all shareholders. However, I can confirm the following information available, from First Home Scheme’s first quarterly report which covers the period from First Home’s launch on July 7th to October 6th:

- 508 buyers in 23 counties have been approved by the Scheme and have received eligibility certificates which will allow them to proceed towards purchasing their chosen affordable home.

- A further 203 applications were being processed, with approvals expected to issue shortly in most of these cases.

- A total of 1,862 potential buyers had registered their interest in the Scheme (823 individual buyers and 1,039 couples)