Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Independent)
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82. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government why Louth County Council was unable to acquire and allocate the five "surplus houses" not taken up within the affordable housing scheme for social housing, opting instead to return them to the developer for sale on the open market; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15633/24]

Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Independent)
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87. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he is aware that at the heart of the housing crisis is an affordability crisis; if he is aware that only half of the houses in Louth County Council's affordable housing scheme were claimed due to stringent eligibility criteria, whether this necessitates some changes in the terms of access for support in order that no one is excluded; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15632/24]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 82 and 87 together.

Housing for All is the Government’s plan to increase the supply of housing to an average of 33,000 per year over the nine year period of the plan to 2030. This includes the delivery of 90,000 social homes, 36,000 affordable purchase homes and 18,000 cost rental homes to be facilitated by Local Authorities, Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), the Land Development Agency (LDA) and through First Home, a strategic partnership between the State and retail banks.

The Affordable Housing Fund (AHF) is available to support local authorities in developing affordable housing schemes. To date, funding approvals have been given for the delivery of 4,048 affordable homes (affordable purchase and cost rental) across 21 local authorities with the support of over €327m in grant assistance from the AHF.

This is a significant level of activity and will continue to expand and develop, together with delivery programmes by all delivery partners, in line with Housing for All targets. Despite the affordability and viability challenges we face, I am satisfied that the arrangements in place are appropriate and effective and can deliver a valuable response to identified affordable housing demand.

I welcome the efforts that are being made by Louth County Council to develop its own affordable housing delivery programme to respond effectively to local needs as identified in their 5-year Housing Delivery Action Plan as published on the local authority’s website.

My Department, together with the Housing Agency, and the Housing Delivery Coordination Office of the Local Government Management Association, will liaise with Louth County Council, in relation to their recent experience in administering the scheme at Cois Fharraige. This will ensure that any learning can be applied as Louth County Council continues to arrange further affordable housing schemes in line with its Housing Delivery Action Plan and help to deliver an effective response to local housing market circumstances and affordability needs in its area.

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The planned review of targets is underway and, once again, will be based on independent, peer reviewed research and modelling by the ESRI.

Importantly, the ESRI is not developing housing targets. Rather, it is researching and modelling a range of scenarios for future demographic housing demand at local authority level for each year to 2040. Accordingly, while some level of pent-up demand will be captured in the ESRI housing demand scenarios, an explicit consideration of pent-up demand is outside the scope of the ESRI's work.

Ultimately, it will be a matter for my Department to translate the ESRI projections into housing targets having regard to, among a range of other things, the prevailing level of unmet or existing demand. This is already provided for in the current average annual target of 33,000 per year, including both the deficit in new housing completions between 2017 and 2019, and the number of ‘concealed’ and homeless households at the time the targets were developed.

The revised targets will make similar provision, including both projected future demand and unmet or existing need across all tenures. I expect revised targets to be published in the Autumn.