Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Under Housing for All the Government will deliver 54,000 affordable homes between now and 2030, targeting an average of 6,000 affordable homes to be made available every year for purchase or for rent by Local Authorities, AHBs, the Land Development Agency (LDA) and via the First Home Scheme.

The LDA represents a crucial lever in the Government’s delivery of affordable and social homes, co-ordinating relevant public lands within State control and activating key underutilised sites to maximise housing delivery. To ensure the delivery of homes, the LDA deploys two primary delivery mechanisms, the first being direct delivery on lands sourced from the State or on lands purchased by the LDA and the second through the Project Tosaigh initiative, whereby they partner with homebuilders.

In establishing the Land Development Agency (LDA) we have ensured proactive management of the State’s extensive land bank. The LDA is also working in partnership with local authorities to deliver new homes on key strategic local authority sites.

The LDA is actively advancing fourteen such direct delivery sites, capable of delivering over 5,500 homes over the next four years and it is projected by the LDA that development of these strategic sites will become the main source of its delivery over the coming years as projects achieve planning and construction starts.

Construction has commenced on the former St. Kevin’s Hospital site in Cork City which will deliver 265 new homes between 2025 and 2027 and on 219 new homes at the site of Devoy Barracks in Naas, Co Kildare, expected to be delivered between 2025 and 2026. Construction work is also advanced on the Shanganagh Castle site, the largest public housing scheme in the State in recent years, which the LDA is delivering with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, expected to yield delivery of 597 homes with delivery beginning this year.

The LDA is also working in partnership with Dublin City Council to advance large scale housing delivery on the Donore Project/St. Teresa’s Gardens in Dublin 8, at Cherry Orchard Point, and Cromcastle in Dublin 5, which collectively are projected to yield delivery of c. 1,700 new homes.

It is also tasked with unlocking stalled private, planning-consented developments in the shorter-term through Project Tosaigh, its market engagement initiative. Under the first phase of Project Tosaigh the LDA delivered its first homes in 2022 and over 2,500 social, affordable purchase and cost rental homes have since either been delivered, contracted or are in the approved pipeline.

Housing types for these developments will vary, according to the site size and planning and design specifications for each project, however a key objective for LDA developments is to maximise density where possible, while remaining sensitive to planning guidelines, and enabling sustainable growth and development within new communities.