Catherine Ardagh (Dublin South Central, Fianna Fail)
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69. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the initiatives he is taking to unlock key strategic public lands for urban brownfield delivery through infrastructure investment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35626/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Programme for Government (PfG) recognised that more is needed to be done to coordinate and accelerate home building by unblocking infrastructure delays and by coordinating investment in servicing zoned land.

Government has agreed to the establishment of a new Housing Activation Office (the Office), which will be the delivery mechanism for the PfG commitment, and my Department has already begun putting together a team of specialists in the areas of infrastructure, planning and housing who will work together to tackle barriers to housing development on the ground. The Office will identify, and seek to address, barriers to the delivery of infrastructure projects required to enable housing development. It will engage and align key stakeholders, including local authorities, infrastructure providers, industry and others to address barriers in a coordinated way.

It is also envisaged that the Office will manage a multi-annual housing infrastructure investment fund under the National Development Plan. The scope of this fund will be determined as part of the review of the National Development Plan, which is due to be completed in July. This will inform the programme of investment.

Furthermore, and in line with the agreed PfG it is also my intention to establish a new Towns and Cities Infrastructure Investment Fund. With this new fund it is the aim of my Department to continue and expand URDF-type investment in projects. This will allow for investment in infrastructure, the acquisition of land, assembly of sites and the de-risking of sites in existing towns and cities to maximise their potential growth.

The detailed arrangements for the implementation of these funding streams, including criteria for eligibility, will be clarified further following completion of the National Development Plan Review, which is the responsibility of the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitisation, and which will enable the level of additional capital funding for infrastructure investment to be determined. It is planned that the Review will be completed in line with the Summer 2025 timeline set out in the Programme for Government.

The Land Development Agency, as a key partner in the Government’s delivery of affordable and social homes, will be closely involved in this process. As part of their remit, they support local authorities, through partnerships, to master planning and deliver homes on local authority lands that are largely urban and brownfield in nature.. They also have a remit to masterplan, activate and deliver housing on other state lands transferred to the Agency, generally also urban and brownfield and in nature.