Written answers
Wednesday, 19 March 2025
Department of Housing, Planning, and Local Government
Housing Provision
Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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891. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government to provide an update on planned new social and affordable housing units for east Cork over the next five years, including expected unit size, cost, completion deadline and any additional details. [11587/25]
James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Under Housing for All, each local authority was required to prepare a Housing Delivery Action Plan. This Plan sets 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. The plans have been published on local authorities’ own websites.
Last November, the Government approved new national housing targets up to the year 2030. 303,000 homes will be delivered in the period from 2025 to 2030, equating to an annual average of 50,500 homes, building up to 60,000 in 2030. The revised targets were informed by research and modelling by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) on population projections and long-run housing demand, which was published during the summer.
The revised national housing targets will inform the revision to existing social and affordable housing targets. Work is ongoing in this regard.
My Department publishes the Social Housing Construction Status Report (CSR), which provides details of social housing developments and their location that have been completed, are under construction or are progressing through the various stages of the design and tender processes. Data is collated at project level rather than individual unit level. Details of the cost of delivery is collated following completion of projects.
The most recent publication was for Quarter 3 2024. Data for Q4 2024 is currently being collated and will be published in due course. All Construction Status Reports are available at the following link: www.gov.ie/en/collection/cb885-social-housing-construction-projects-status-reports/.
A version of the CSR file can also be downloaded for analysis by local authority, location etc. at this link: data.gov.ie/dataset/social-housing-construction-status-report-q3-2024
As detailed under Housing for All, the Government plans to deliver 54,000 affordable purchase and cost rental homes by 2030. A comprehensive implementation strategy is in place to support the various affordable housing schemes now being delivered by a range of delivery partners.
The Affordable Housing Fund (AHF) is available to all local authorities to assist towards the cost of developing affordable housing at locations where significant affordability needs have been identified. My Department, the Housing Agency and Housing Delivery Co-ordination Office of the Local Government Management Association continue to be available to assist local authorities in relation to ongoing development of their affordable housing delivery programmes. Overall, local authorities have received funding approval of over €465m from the Affordable Housing Fund to support the delivery of more than 5,200 affordable purchase and cost rental homes across 22 local authorities, including approval for the delivery of 1,133 affordable homes in Cork City and Cork County.
In addition, the development of Cost Rental homes is supported by my Department through a mixture of capital grants, loan financing, and State equity investment, via the Affordable Housing Fund to Local Authorities, the Cost Rental Equity Loan scheme to Approved Housing Bodies, and the Secure Tenancy Affordable Rental investment scheme which supports delivery by private operators. To date, over 5,600 Cost Rental homes have been approved for funding under the Cost Rental Equity Loan, to be delivered by Approved Housing Bodies, including 637 cost rental homes in Cork.
The Land Development Agency also continues to advance its delivery of affordable homes through unlocking planning permissions under Project Tosaigh and by developing its own portfolio of State lands. The LDA is targeting 8,000 new homes over the course of the Project Tosaigh initiative. They are currently on track to deliver 5,000 new homes for social housing, Cost Rental and Affordable Purchase to eligible households by end 2026.
My Department publishes comprehensive programme-level statistics on affordable and social housing delivery activity by local authorities and delivery partners in each local authority area. Data for the years 2022 up to Q3 2024 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/?#affordable-housing-delivery
Further information on affordable housing schemes currently advertised can be found on the websites of respective delivery partners, as well as on the Affordable Homes website, www.affordablehomes.ie.
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