Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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228. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will provide a schedule for the development of social and affordable housing on public land banks in County Kildare in 2023 and 2024. [2482/23]

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 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. Kildare County Council has a target to deliver 400 new build social homes in 2023 and 409 new build social homes in 2024.I have also set individual five-year Affordable Housing delivery targets, with Kildare assigned a target of 226 Affordable Housing Fund supported homes by 2026. It should be noted that this excludes affordable purchase and cost rental delivery via the Land Development Agency and Approved Housing Bodies.

A key action of Housing for All required local authorities to develop Housing Delivery Action Plans to include details of social and affordable housing delivery. The Plans set out details of both social and affordable housing delivery as appropriate over the period 2022-2026, in line with targets set under Housing for All. In preparing the Plans, local authorities were required to include details of land available to delivery housing and details of land acquisition requirements. The Plans also include details of the locations and delivery streams for social housing schemes. Kildare’s Housing Delivery Action Plan is available on Kildare County Council’s website at this link: kildarecoco.ie/YourCouncil/Publications/Housing/Kildare%20County%20Council%20Housing%20Delivery%20Action%20Plan.pdf

My Department publishes comprehensive programme level statistics on a quarterly basis on social housing delivery activity. This data is available to the end of Quarter 3 2022, and is published on the statistics page of my Department’s website, at the following link: www.gov.ie/en/collection/6060e-overall-social-housing-provision/

My Department also publishes the Social Housing Construction Status Report (CSR). The CSR provides details of social housing developments that have been completed, are under construction or are progressing through the various stages of the design and pre-tender process. The most recent publication was for Q3 2022. The report is available at the following link: www.gov.ie/en/publication/2b4cd-social-housing-construction-projects-status-report-q3-2022/. A version of the CSR file can also be downloaded for analysis at this link: data.gov.ie/dataset/social-housing-construction-status-report-q3-2022?package_type=dataset

Local authorities have begun collating information on the delivery of affordable homes in their area in the same manner as is currently undertaken for social housing. It is intended that information on delivery across all delivery streams will be coordinated by my Department and I expect that my Department will be in a position to commence reporting on affordable delivery figures in national quarterly delivery statistics for Q4 2022.

The First Home affordable purchase scheme, launched in July 2022, supports first-time buyers in purchasing new homes in the private market through the use of an equity share model. The scheme, which has issued over 200 approvals in Kildare to date, is available nationwide and more information can be found at: www.firsthomescheme.ie/

The Land Development Agency (LDA) has been granted planning permission for a Strategic Housing Development (SHD) on the lands of the former Devoy Barracks in Naas intended to deliver 219 affordable purchase, cost rental and social homes. The LDA is also tasked with unlocking stalled private, planning-consented developments through Project Tosaigh. Work is underway in assessing proposals submitted and details of current LDA developments can be found at: www.lda.ie

Other measures, such as the Help to Buy Scheme and the Local Authority Home loan are also nationally available to eligible first-time purchasers to make home ownership more affordable.