John Paul O'Shea (Cork North-West, Fine Gael)
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145. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government for an update on the ready-to-build scheme, outlining how many serviced sites are currently available per local authority for purchase, and how many are expected to come on stream in 2025 and 2026, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17656/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Ready to Build Scheme, funded by the Croí Cónaithe Towns Fund, to support addressing vacancy, was launched in September 2022. Under the Scheme, local authorities can make vacant serviced sites in towns and villages available to potential individual purchasers to build a home.

Under the scheme, local authorities identify suitable vacant sites in their ownership or purchase vacant sites in towns and villages and make them available for sale for the purpose of building a principal private residence. Once serviced, the local authority will make the site available for sale at a discount on the market value of the site. The level of discount to the individual will depend on the level of servicing cost incurred by the local authority before the sale of the site, but will not exceed €30,000.

The scheme is managed and administered by local authorities on behalf of my Department. To date 24 sites have been available for sale by 4 local authorities, 5 sites in Wicklow, 8 sites in Laois, 4 sites in Tipperary and most recently, 7 sites by Kildare County Council. The relevant local authority assesses the applications they receive based on the framework of priorities contained in the scheme outline and holds the records of applications received.

A further 100 sites have been identified by various local authorities for possible inclusion in the scheme. These sites are at various stages of investigations to determine the costs involved to service the sites and ascertaining the potential level of interest in site purchase. The Vacant Homes Unit in my Department is engaging with local authorities in relation to these sites. It is not possible to determine the number of sites that will be made available for sale under the scheme until local authorities have completed their site investigations and assessments.