Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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100. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he intends to review the housing target/cap figures for county development plans in light of the initial population results from Census 2022; the way that this will affect County Meath; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11467/23]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Further to work commissioned by the Department, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) published a report into structural housing demand in Ireland to 2040, in December 2020. The ESRI’s research projected an annual new household demand figure for each county from 2016 to 2040, for a number of different development scenarios, including the National Planning Framework (NPF) scenario.

Subsequently, Section 28 Ministerial Guidelines entitled- ‘Housing Supply Target Methodology for Development Planning, Guidelines for Planning Authorities’ were issued to all local authorities and introduced a standardised national approach, based on the ESRI data, to be applied by each planning authority in projecting Housing Supply Targets for each specific six-year period, when reviewing city or county development plans.

The preliminary Census 2022 results indicated that the population of Ireland and consequent overall level of housing demand is broadly in line with that projected by the ESRI for the same period.

The final Census 2022 results are due to be published from May 2023 and will inform the update to the work of the ESRI, as part of the first revision to the National Planning Framework.