Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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75. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of affordable purchase and cost-rental homes, respectively, that will be delivered through LDA investment in 2023; and the estimated amount of expenditure it has allocated to deliver same. [10435/23]

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. Under Housing for All, the Government aims to deliver 54,000 affordable homes between now and 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. 2022 represents the commencement of a very ambitious programme of delivery of affordable housing.

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 in a controlled manner, which is expected to bring essential more long-term stability to the Irish housing market. 

It 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 seeking proposals from the homebuilding sector for the forward purchase of unbuilt residential units at the end of 2021, and, arising from that, LDA now has a pipeline of projects anticipated to deliver affordable for sale and cost rental homes over 2022-2024. A renewed expressions of interest process under Project Tosaigh was initiated in October 2022. Work is underway in assessing the proposals submitted to add to the evolving pipeline. 

The LDA are collating information on delivery of affordable homes. It is intended that information on affordable 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 in national quarterly delivery statistics shortly.

Following the enactment of the LDA Act 2021, the LDA has access to up to €1.25bn from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), as well as up to €1.25bn in borrowings. Housing for All recognised that additional resourcing will be required to meet the increased level of activities envisaged under the plan to assist in funding the pipeline of housing. The additional funding will be subject to an amendment being made to the LDA Act and would bring the total capital available to €3.5bn.